Deviation
by MegaSnivy15k
Summary: Lucas is just your average Lucario, the same Lucario that you yourself might even have! But this Lucario is determined to deviate from the usual formula and become the Champion! But will he succeed? Will his friends be his downfall, or will they be his undoing? That shifty Zoroark looks like trouble! And who's following us... Slow updating. Contains blood, gore and mild swearing.
1. 1: A long way to the top

Chapter 1

**A long way to the top**

_Once, upon such a long time ago, there was peace and unity._

_But such things never last long in the stream of time._

_Death follows Life, and as such, Anarchy follows tranquility._

...|_Deviation_|...

Hey there! I'm Lucas the Lucario - among over nicknames that friends have given me. But eventually, I want to be known as Lucas the Pokemon Champion! I know that Humans only get crowned Pokemon Champion, but that's not gonna stop me from trying! Anyway, I had just exited the Verity Lake forest and was on my way to Sandgem town in order to get my Starter Pokemon and my PokeDex.

From the the hill that I stood on, I could just see Iron Island - where I was born, Twin Leaf Town and Sandgem Town . It was a beautiful sight, especially since the morning sun shone down on the grass, making it sparkle with a beautiful light as it shone through the morning dew. Ambient sounds of Bidoofs scurrying about and Starlys flying around in their flocks filled the air with a vibrant atmosphere, creating an amazing scene to look upon. The beautiful scene helped calm my nerves. I was very excited about starting my Pokemon Journey just like the other great Pokemon Master in history had. But I nervous because I wasn't sure how people would respond to a wild Pokemon trying to beat all 8 Gym Leaders and then the Elite 4 and finally the champ herself. Would they even let me? They could even try to capture me! But my time for worrying was over and it was time to become the Pokemon Master!

But I wasn't the only one enjoying the splendid sun rise. In the distance - following the dusty path towards Twinleaf Town - was a young Trainer with his little Turtwig trotting beside him. He looked like he had just gotten his own starter and was most likely on his way home for what ever reason.

The trainer in question was wearing a red barret with a blue and white Pokeball design on the side, had brown hair, blue eyes, a blue and black vest with a white tank top, gray-blue cargo pants, red and white shoes and had a yellow bag.

"Wow! I still can't believe we bet those Starly's! That was SOOO awesome!" The trainer said excitedly. "I wonder what Pokemon are on this route?" Then, the trainer noticed me watching him. "*Gasp*! OMG it's an actual Lucario! Hey Twiggy! Ya think we can knock it out?" Twiggy - his Turtwig - nodded with the same excitement that his trainer had.

"You can try, but you defeat me." I said proudly, knowing that my years of training would help against this Turtwig. Plus, it seemed to be a starter, so it wasn't going to be a super high leveled Pokemon.

"WOW! You talk as well!? A super rare, TALKING Pokemon!? ZOMG, this is the best day of my LIFE! Twiggy! Get ready for a battle of the centuary!" Twiggy then raced out in front of his trainer and struck a battle pose.

"Ready to battle!" It cried proudly, preping himself for the upcoming battle.

I smiled at the determination of the duo and struck my own battle pose and readied up a Thunder Punch - one of my more recent moves.

"Twiggy! Use Tackle!"

Twiggy sprinted at me as fast as it's stubby little legs - which was surprisingly fast, but not as fast as I was.

I managed to nimbly dodge his tackle and counter attack with my favorite move - Thunder Punch.

**Blam!**

My electrified fist connected with the side of Twiggy's face, flinging him across the dusty path and narrowly avoiding a nearby tree.

"Wow! That was AWESOME!" The trainer exclaimed. "Twiggy, return! You did well." He said as he recalled the fainted Turtwig.

"Um, didn't you know that I would be stronger than your Turtwig?" I asked, wondering why he would even _try_ to fight me, since I was an evolved Pokemon and therefore stronger than a starter, but whatever.

"I challenged you because I love battling! Plus... I sorta want to catch you, but then I realized that I didn't have any PokeBalls to catch you with! Hahaha, ha, ha..."

"Hey, are you going to challenge the Elite 4?" I asked, thinking of a brilliant idea to benefit us both.

"Yeah! I'm going to beat them all, then become the Pokemon Master! Why do you ask?" He said excitedly.

"Well, I'm going to challenge the E4 as well, so... would you mind me joining you on your journey?" The trainer grinned from ear to ear when he heard the news. "As a travelling partner, not your Pokemon, if that's what you thought I meant." He's smile faded slightly, but he shrugged it off.

"Wow... I'm travelling with a talking Lucario! Hey, do you have a nickname then?" As a matter of fact, I do.

"Yeah, my name's Lucas. I assume that you have a name, right?" I replied.

"Yup! My name's Sparrow! Sparrow Davidson, to be precise!"

"Sparrow? That's a pretty nice name, don't think I know anybody else called Sparrow, but whatever." I said, thinking about how weird it is to be named after a bird.

"Yeah... anyway, you said you were going against the E4, right? Are you going to get a starter? I got Twiggy here!" Sparrow said proudly.

"I'm hoping to get a Chimchar, but I'm not sure if Professor Rowan still has any starters yet." I might have been too late, but it was worth a try anyway. Plus, I need a PokeDex - unless he ran out of those as well.

"Ok, hey! I know what we should do once you get your Pokemon!" He said excitedly "We should have match! I want to see how good you are at battling!"

"Sure, but I have the advantage since Chimchar is a Fire- type." I replied.

"Yeah, well, I've trained up Twiggy a bit, so don't think it'll be easy!" he replied confidently.

"Not by much, though." I reminded him. "Anyway, I'm going to go to Sandgem Town and see Professor Rowan about getting a Starter."

"Cool! Let's get going! I am 99.9% sure that I will beat you!" Still a chance I could beat him, but whatever.

"Heh, whatever."

"Hey, what happens when you faint in a battle? Does it count as a forfeit, or what?"

"Good question, but I have come prepared!" I exclaimed, opening up my back back I had on and pulling out my good ol' friend; Skitz the Skitty.

"Introducing: Skitz the Skitty! Also my medic!"

"Wow, you got a Skitty? That's pretty cool! Does she give you Potions when you faint?" He asked inquisitively.

"Well, she gives me Revives, but yeah, that's the basic principle. Plus she doesn't like to battle, so she still get's to be part of my team, just in a different way."

"Hmm, thats pretty cool... Hey there little Skitty!" He said childishly, putting his face in Skitz's face. Skitz did not approve of this, and decided to smack Sparrow in the face with a clawed paw. "Oww! She scratched me!"

"I don't think you should put your face so close to hers like that, she doesn't seem to like."

"Yeah, I suppose so... anyway, lets go to Sandgem Town!"

"Yeah, let's get going. Hey, haven't you already been to Sandgem Town before?" I asked, noticing that he already had a Pokemon.

"Well... I forgot to pick up my PokeDex, so I need to go back and get that before I challenge any gyms."

And with that, Sparrow, Skitz and I head off to Sandgem Town so that I could get my Starter Pokemon and Sparrow could get his PokeDex.

...|_Deviation_|...


	2. 2: A thorn bush with roses

Chapter 2

**A thorn bush with roses**

_From the darkness of obscurity, rose a figure of immense power._

_The Power it wielded was far more vast than anything ever witnessed._

_So vast, that it reached the very edge of the earth._

...|_Deviation_|...

We first saw Sandgem town as we reached the top of the hill on the route to Sandgem town.

"My feet hurt..." Sparrow said for the _5th _time. I was starting to get annoyed by Sparrow's constant complaining.

"Are you serious? We've been walking for _5 minutes_! What do you do all day? Sleep? I run laps around Iron Island as a _warm up_!"

"Yeah, well, I'm not the fittest person out there, okay? Plus, I already walked here once, know I have to" Sparrow said defensively.

"Whatever, were almost there anyway." I said. "Just hold on for like another 5 minutes-"

"Another 5 minutes?! I don't think I can take that much more walking!" Sparrow whined.

"You're gonna have to get some endurance, especially when we get to places like Victory Road and such other places." I was very certain that I could take out the Victory Road pretty easily, but Sparrows endurance would probably get him through the entrance, but that would be as far as he would get.

...|_5 minutes later_|...

"Hey! We made it! I can see the PokeCenter and the Lab!" Exclaimed Sparrow as Sandgem Town came into view under the midday sun.

"Yeah, It's a bit small, but I'm still glad to be here!" I said, noticing the small size of the town. There were a few houses scattered across the town with some shops dotted in between. The famous PokeCenter and PokeMart stood out from the brown, yellow and occasional green colored houses. Among the shops and houses was the PokeLab - our current objective.

"Not every town can be as big as Jumbilife City, you know." Sparrow replied.

"Hmm... guess so, Anyway, let's head towards the PokeLab - I want to get a starter, or at least a PokeDex."

"Hey, relax!" Sparrow said, " I'm sure that you'll get a starter! Last time I checked, the Professor had plenty of Pokemon ready!" I hope he was right.

...|_Professor Rowan's Lab_|...

We finally found the PokeLab among the houses and next to the PokeCenter. It looked like a PokeCenter in a way, but had lot's of scientific machines and rows of bookcases filled with books. at the far end of the room stood none other than Professor Rowan.

"Ahh! Sparrow was it?" Professor Rowan said. " I see you have captured a Lucario, it seems."

"Well, Lucas - the Lucario - isn't actually mine." Sparrow explained.

"Oh? It isn't? Ok, it must have decided to travel with you then! Anyway, how is Turtwig going? I hope you are treating it well, right?" Rowan replied.

"Yea, of course I am, aren't I Twiggy?" Twiggy responded with an enthusiastic 'Yeah!' and a little fist-pump.

"That is wonderful, Sparrow!" Rowan said with a warm smile. "Do you want me to check your PokeDex?"

"Ahh, well, that's Lucas and I are here; he wants to get a Starter, and I forgot to get my PokeDex."

"Oh? Is that so? Well, I am afraid I have no more Starting Pokemon for you to adopt, Lucas." That was very disappointing. I was hoping that we would get here in time, but obviously we didn't. "However, I have several PokeDex's left. If you so wish to obtain one, you may." Well, at least it's something.

Me and Sparrow both took our PokeDex's off the Professor and marveled at the pocket sized machines. the Pokedex's were mainly red and rectangular with black outlines.

"Yeah, I guess this is okay, but how do you use this?" I asked. I had never used one of these before, so I didn't know how to use it. I started to randomly press the buttons.

Rowan responded by saying; "Turn it on, and press the red-"

Suddenly, one of the buttons I pressed caused the PokeDex to emit a bright red light right into my eyes - due to the fact that I had it turned around the wrong way. After the light had faded and my sight returned, the PokeDex spoke of what it saw.

"POKEMON REGISTERED! LUCARIO: LEVEL 65, KNOWN MOVES: THUNDER PUNCH, EXTREME SPEED, SWORDS DANCE AND AURA SPHERE." It chirped loudly.

"What does that mean?" I asked after making sure that I hadn't been blinded by the PokeDex.

"It means that you're AWESOME! I've never seen any other Pokemon above level 20!" Sparrow excitedly exclaimed.

"Basically," Rowan began, "Your level is a measurement of your power. The higher the level, the more powerful you are compared to other Pokemon of your species. However, the highest level recorded is 100, and no Pokemon has ever been found above level 100."

"Heh, I guess all that training I did on Iron Island paid off after all!" I was relieved that I had grown strong after the many years of training at Iron Island.

"Yes, well, at this rate, you should have a good chance at the Elite 4 - assuming that you pick up a few companions here and there as well." Professor Rowan said to the two of us.

"Yeah! But I'll have to try extra hard to catch up to you, Lucas!" Sparrow enthusiastically said to me. "But it shouldn't be _that_ hard, right?"

"Well, maybe, maybe not? Regardless, I'm looking forward to potentially battling you!" I replied happily. Sparrow smiled back.

"You two be careful and remember to respect your Pokemon, and have a safe journey!" Rowan reminded us as we headed out of the PokeLab.

"We will! See ya later Professor!"

And off we went, heading towards Route 202 in order to reach the next town. Which happened to be Jumbilife City - one of the biggest cities in Sinnoh. Gotta catch that badge!

...|_Lake Verity Forest Edge_|...

Hiding among the oak trees that lined the small route, was a dark, humanoid figure, calmly staring at the Human and the Lucario as they walked down the dusty dirt path that connected Sangem to Twinleaf. However, the shadowy figure wasn't interested in the Human - only the Lucario that it followed.

"Is that him? That Lucario there, is he the one who has the stone?" It said to itself, only instead of receiving silence, a voice spoke back. It was a telepathic voice that spoke only to the hidden figure.

_Yes! That's him! He has the Imperial Orb! You must accompany him on his journey and ensure that he accomplishes his goal! Only then will you receive what search for!_

The voice was female with a childish attitude, yet it was somewhat mature.

"Yes... I will track him down and get him to allow me on his little team." The figure said to the telepathic voice, anticipating the events that would be happening in the near future.

_Remember! Do NOT kill him, I want him to be alive and breathing. I also don't want to see any health loss that has come from you either._ The telepathic voice warned, not wanting to see the Lucario injured by the shadowy figure.

"I know, I know! I will ensure that he is unharmed."

And with that, the shadowy figure sprung to life and sprinted further into the surrounding forest, determined to beat the group to their destination.

"Be ready, Lucas." It said to itself.

"Be ready..."

...|_Deviation_|...


	3. 3: If you can dream it, you can do it

Chapter 3

**If you can dream it**

_Disturbed by the overwhelming power it sensed, another figure awoke._

_This figure was enshrouded in a veil of darkness, it's heart pumped no blood, but instead fear itself._

_And with every beat of it's corrupted heart, catastrophe struck the earth below it._

...|_Deviation_|...

The morning sun shone down upon Sparrow and I as we traversed the overgrown road that led towards Jublife City, which happened to be our current objective. This route was known as Route 202, and was horribly overgrown with tall, wild grass that was home to many species of Pokemon. We had decided stayed at the PokeCenter for the night and then make our way through the wild route. But it wasn't as simple as walking down a calm, quiet path - no, it was much harder than that. As we waded through the tall grass, avoiding the countless Pokemon scattered around in the grass, we were meet with an unusual trainer.

"Hey there!" She called to us. "You look like a newbie! My name's I'll teach you how to catch Pokemon!" And as if on cue, a Bidoof stumbled sleepily out of the tall grass and stopped in front of the trainer, looking confused at the intruder.

"Hey, there's a wild Pokemon now! Go Piplup!" She grabbed one of the tiny PokeBalls off her belt which expanded in her hand. She then threw the PokeBall into the air and it exploded, releasing the Piplup onto the make-shift battlefield.

_"Prepare to be fucked up!"_ Piplup announced as he entered the battlefield. The Bidoof cowered from the Piplup, but stood it's ground.

"OK, so what I'm going to do now, is weaken the Bidoof by using a move, such as Pound! Piplup, use POUND! " She commanded to her Piplup.

_"Yeah! Eat shit, bitch!" _The piplup said as it smacked the Bidoof

"Yeah! Good work Piplup! NOW, I will use a POKEBALL!" She then threw another standard Pokeball at the Bidoof, who was barely under half HP. It then shook once, twice, and... failure! The PokeBall opened up with a bright flash of red light, releasing the pissed off Bidoof.

"Fuck! I mean, that's NOT how you catch a Pokemon, uh, heh heh, uh THIS is how you catch a Pokemon! Piplup! Use Pound!" She commanded yet again, hoping that she wouldn't mess up in front the Trainer in front of her.

_"Yeah! Take this motherfucker!" _Piplup shouted at the already enraged Bidoof whilst beating the Bidoof over the head with its tiny flipper.

The Bidoof retaliated by slamming it's body into Piplup, throwing him back into his trainer, knocking the penguin out with a swift Tackle.

"Uh, how long have you trained that Piplup?" Sparrow said, observing the fight.

"Shut UP!" She said suddenly, "GO POKEBALL!" She grabbed a Pokeball from her backpack and threw it at the Bidoof.

The ball twitched once, twice...

and... clicked as the Pokemon trapped inside failed to escape prison that was the PokeBall.

"Hah! HAH! HahahaHA!" She laughed manically "That's how you catch a Pokemon! Hah HAH!"

"Right... anyway, we have to get going, we're heading towards Jubilife then Oreburgh." Sparrow said to the trainer, interrupting her evil laughter.

"Hey! I've still got to give you your PokeBalls! Then you can catch that Lucario that's been following you around." Dawn said.

"What!?" Sparrow said, sounding surprised at the suggestion "I'm not going to catch him; he's my travelling partner!" But she didn't care about that, I was just a cool Pokemon that she could catch. Except for the fact that she barely caught a weak Bidoof, so I couldn't see her actually catching me.

"Well, if you're not going to it, I will!" She pulled out another PokeBall and threw it at me.

But I wasn't about caught, not when my journey had just began. So, when I saw the red and white ball flying at my face, I reacted by punching it back to where it came from which, was Dawn.

The PokeBall collided with her face, giving her a bloody nose as she tumbled onto the lush wild grass.

"Owww! Fuck! That hurt a lot you fucking retard!" Dawn said angrily,

"HEY! I am NOT going to be caught by you!" I told her sternly. "And you barely managed to catch that Bidoof, what makes you think you could capture me?"

"I would get Piplup here to knock you out!" Dawn said, motioning to the Piplup that was currently swaying dizzily as it awoke.

"Um, sorry to say, but, Piplup just woke up from being knocked out so it's not going to be that useful." I told her, hoping that she wouldn't throw another PokeBall at me.

"Uh we better get going, um, things to do, uh, places to go." Sparrow nervously said, hoping to interrupt us and stop a fight from breaking out.

"Err..." Dawn growled, annoyed that she couldn't catch me. "Fine! Be like that! I don't give shit about catching you anyway! I'm going to catch better Pokemon than _you_!"

"Well stuff you too, I'm going to smash the Elite 4 and become the Champion of Sinnoh!" I called back to her as she finally managed to push herself off of the luscious grass and back onto her feet, wiping the blood off her bleeding nose.

"You're _what_?! Hell no! I'm not going to be beaten by a wild Pokemon!" She yelled. "I am going to be the Pokemon Master! Not you, ME!" She then stormed off, picking up the drunken Piplup and waded through the endless grass.

"*Sigh*, whatever, lets just get to Oreburg so we can challenge the gym leader."

"Sounds like a plan."

Doing our own wading, we continued through the overgrown and neglected path, through the Bug catchers and Picnickers that seemed to patrol the route. But they were no match to me, since I could easily knockout their Pokemon and scare away any wilds that tried to attack me. Sparrow and Twiggy were pretty strong as well. Sparrow was not able to catch any Pokemon, since he couldn't figure out how to prime the PokeBalls, so we mostly ignored them until we did find out how to prime them - but by the time that happened, we had already entered Jumbilife City. As for me, I kept scaring off the Pokemon I approached, and the ones that stayed just wanted to fight with me.

But that was all in the past, for now we were in Jumbilife city, the next step for our journey. Little did we know that we'd be recruiting a new member! Just, not the member we wanted on our team...

...|_Deviation_|...


	4. 4: You've got something I need

Chapter 1

The figure of power did not like such evil occuring upon the very earth it stood on, and so it pledged to destroy the evil.

...|_Deviation_|...

Jubilife City. One of the biggest cities in the Sinnoh region apart from Hearthome City and maybe Pastoria or Sunyshore City. Other than that, there really wasn't much in it. There was a Trainers School, A trade center, the standard PokeCenter and Mart and a few other house and shops. There were also many different types of office buildings that were littered around the city, reaching high into the sky with their multicolored tips.

"Hey, why's that guy looking at us like that," Sparrow said, referring to the bald man standing in the middle of the crowded sidewalk.

The man in question looked to be around 40 years old and was wearing a purple jacket, a brown tie, a white undershirt and brown cargo pants. He was also sporting a wide grin as he spotted us and began wading through the sea of people walking to their jobs or on their way to get breakfast, since it was still reasonably early in the morning.

Not sure what to do now that the old man was heading towards us at a surprisingly fast speed, we decide to try back off and lose him in the massive crowd of people.

"HEY! HEY YOU! YEAH YOU! DO YOU HAVE A POKEWATCH!?" The man called loudly over the constant chatter of the people around us. The sudden call caused a few heads to turn our way as they passed him warily.

"Wha-what? I-we-we don't have a PokeWatch-" Sparrow began, before being interrupted by the booming voice of the business man.

"WHAAAAT?! YOU DON'T HAVE A POKEWATCH!? YOU CALL YOURSELF A POKEMON TRAINER, YET YOU DON'T HAVE A POKEWATCH!? HOW COULD THIS BE!?" He boomed loudly, leading to a few people to stop and watch the Poketch man - as he had been called by the locals - attempt to sell his device to these kids. This usually happened once a month or so, since most trainers were aware of the man and usually went out of their way to avoid him and his loud mouth.

"Well, I didn't really think-" Sparrow was once again interrupted the Poketech man as he continued to call loudly to us, even though we were mere meters away from him at this point.

"WELL THEN!" He boomed, keeping the same, constantly loud voice. "I HAVE PLACED THREE CLOWNS AROUND JUBILIFE LIFE! IF YOU FIND THEM AND ANSWER THEIR SHORT QUIZ, THEY WILL GIVE YOU A COUPON! IF YOU COLLECT ALL THREE COUPONS, YOU WILL GET YOUR OWN, I REPEAT, YOUR VERY OWN POKEWATCH! OR POKETCH FOR SHOT!" He was definitely getting on my nerves now, so I was immensely relived that my eardrums were finally given time to recover from the Poketch man's loud voice.

"OK! Well go find the clowns, jeez." Sparrow quickly hurried away from the creepy man and head upstream through the sea people away from him and his insanely loud voice. I quickly followed his lead and caught up with him.

"Yeah, I think I saw a clown over there near Radio Tower over there," I said Pointing to a tall building on the far side of the city that had six satellite dish on its' roof, and a massive screen.

We wandered around the expansive city looking for the clowns in order to get a Poketch. I wanted to get a Poketch because I heard it had some neat features on it, like counting your steps and even having a watch on it. I also didn't want to run into the Poketch man again without having the coupons, because I don't think my sensitive ears could take another beating from his voice. It didn't take us long to find the three clowns - as they were placed reasonably close to one another - and answer their questions, which were pretty easy to answer, especially since I was Pokemon and knew about most of that stuff anyway. I still wonder why they need an entire school just to teach kids about such basic concepts, like what antidotes do and how typing works and such. Pointless if you ask me, but that's just my opinion.

As we were heading back through the now less dense sidewalks, I heard the strangest thing; it was a voice inside of my head that sounded very similar to my own voice, but with subtle differences, mostly in the way of grammar.

_Lucas, head towards the nearest alleyway on your right; you will be greeted by an old friend of yours. You need to let her join your quest, as it is vital for the master plan. As to what that master plan is, you will find out once you complete your quest._

For some reason, the voice sounded so convincing and genuinely welcoming, even though I knew that anyone who wanted you to meet them in an alleyway was most likely up to something. But I followed the voice's order unconditionally and started to head towards the nearest alleyway - just like it had told me to do.

"Hey Sparrow! I think I found a shortcut," I told, not wanting to tell him that I heard a voice in my telling me to go into the alleyway. "I think we should head this way."

"Are you sure that's a shortcut?" He asked wearily, noticing how the 'shortcut' lead to nothing but a dead end. "I think it might be quicker to go the long way around."

"uh, well, no, I think that uh, this way will be quicker" I told him, trying to convince him to follow me. "After all, that's why it's called a shortcut, isn't it?" I wasn't sounding very convincing at this point, especially since I had failed to notice the dead end that the alleyway had unfortunately ended in.

"It's not a shortcut, because it end's in a flippin' dead end! How can going through a solid brick wall be quicker than walking 500 meters to get to the Poketch man?!" He exclaimed angrily, not understanding my logic.

At this point, I was getting ready to say 'Yeah, you know what? You're right, let's keep going', but the voice had other plans.

I suddenly felt the strong urge to get our butts into that alleyway. It was like my instincts were telling me to do something, like escape from a predator, but I knew that it was just the voice. Yet, somehow it had captivated me and now had my full trust.

"Look," I said, desperately trying to think how to get him to follow me. "We just need to go into the alleyway, ok? Just trust me on this one, right?"

"Well, uh... hey! I think someone's in there already," Sparrow replied, noticing a shadowy figure appear in the abandoned alleyway, seemingly from the shadows themselves.

"What?" I spun around and squinted into the dark alleyway, also noticing the figure. I felt another impulse as I stared at the dark figure, leaning casually on the wall. It told me to approach it and to let it accompany us.

"Hey, let's go say hi to it." I said weirdly, noticing how odd it sounded. I usually didn't say things like that, nor do I approach random strangers to say 'hi'.

"Uh, Lucas?" Sparrow asked, feeling concerned. "You feeling alright? You don't sound like yourself today..."

I began to walk towards the shadowy figure, not caring that it could easily kill me if it tried, or that it could mug me if I wasn't careful. All of those factors never made it to mind, they were instead blocked out by the constant itch in my mind that forced me to enter the alleyway and recruit this person or Pokemon, even though I didn't even know who it was.

My eyes became adjusted to the low amount of light and I was soon able to make out the details of the mysterious figure.

The figure turned out to be a girl who had light blue eyes with red lines rimming her eyes and the corners of her mouth, black hair that reached just below her shoulders and had red tips, a black t-shirt with a fully red Pokeball with two red machetes below it like a skull and crossbones on it, black short jeans, and black sports shoes laced with red laces.

"Are you...?" I asked, wanting to make sure that I wasn't mistaken.

"Yes, I am." She responded. "You need to recruit me, right?"

"Ah, yeah..." I said awkwardly. I wasn't very prepared for this. "Hey, what's your name?"

"Humph, you want to know my name?" She said with a subtle hint of spite. "My name's Zora. Recognize me?"

My jaw dropped as I realized who this was. This was someone who had ruined my life and destroyed my family, and now I had to let her join my team?

"You! There's no way i'm letting you join my team!" I told her angrily. As I was saying this, Sparrow decided to catch up.

"Who's this?" He asked, looking Zora.

"I'm Zora, and i'm not what you think I am!" Before Sparrow could figured out what she'd said, Zora became surrounded in a pitch black mist before revealing her true form. What stood in her place, was a menacing Zoroark, grinning evilly as the mystic mist dispersed.

"Ta-da!" She said, striking a pose. "What's wrong? Skitty got your tongue?"

Zora was the last person I wanted in my group. She was a thief and a murderer, and now she was going to one of my team members! I couldn't believe it!

"No! You're not just going to join us like that!" I said angrily. "You can't! Not after what you did to my family!"

Zora and I knew what had happened on that one fateful day all those years ago - I knew it so well partly because it was the reason I trained so hard - but Sparrow had no clue what so ever.

"Uhh, what happened?" He asked nervously. "And why do you her to join you if you don't like her, and why did you want her to join us anyway? You didn't even know who she was before she broke her illusions." I agreed with him, I wasn't just going to let her on my team and possibly even get robbed by her!

"Well, stuff you! I ain't gonna let you join my team!" I then started to walk out of the dark alleyway and past the confused Sparrow.

"Hey! You can't run from destiny!" She called out as I disappeared around the corner.

_Watch me._ I thought to myself.

Sparrow soon caught up to me and the two of us walked back to the Poketch man using the actual path there and not the 'shortcut' and collected our Poketch's.

Eventually we got to the city limits and were meet with an unfortunate turn of events.

"So, she thinks she can just join my team, eh?" I said to myself.

"Wait, who is she?" Sparrow asked curiously.

"I'll tell you later, right now we're about to show that stupid fox who's boss!" And with that, we approached the end of the paved road that lead to the dusty dirt road.

But before I could exit the city, I was stopped by a mysterious barrier.

**THWACK!**

"Oww! What the heck!?" I said as I clutched my nose and stared at the invisible barrier that blocked my pathway to freedom.

"So... you think we should head back now...?" Sparrow said wearily.

I sighed as I realized that there was no way of avoiding her. "I guess there's no way out of it..."

I begrudgingly headed back towards the devil herself and braced myself for what would come.

...|_Deviation_|...


	5. 5: Not ready to make nice

_Chapter 5_

**Not ready to make nice**

_A battle ensued inwhich both figures fought firecly, but only one survived._

_..._|_Deviation_|...

I was completely stumped. Where did this barrier come from? Why did stop me, but not the other people the crossed through the barrier with ease? Who wanted me to recruit Zora so badly? And WHY!?

"Hey Lucas, why don't you want Zora to join us?" Sparrow asked innocently, not knowing the reason why I hated her so much. I decided that now was probably going to be the best time to explain to him why I didn't like Zora very much.

"Well, I'll give you a shortened version." I replied. Sparrow nodded and I began to recite my memories.

...|_5 Years Earlier_|...

Iron Island was a rocky, rather barren island off the coast of Sinnoh, close to Eterna Forest and Floaroma City. The only way to get to Iron Island was to get on a ferry from Canalave City to Iron island, so I didn't have much contact with humans, due to fact that wild Pokemon weren't allowed on ships or ferry's, in case they get reckless or whatever and break something. Plus, there was the fear getting trapped in a Pokeball. Weather was bad, but it was good either, usually being warm or cool and was predominantly sunny, with rain coming in very sparse bands, giving the landscape a dry, rocky appeal to it. With the addition of open Iron mines, the red, dusty color of the land and the over abundance of Iron and other minerals, it's not hard to see where Iron Island got it's name from. Iron Island was usually peaceful, but today was anything but peaceful for me and my family. My usual routine was to get, eat some berries, practice my moves on a local tree for about an hour or two - or until I spotted a trainer, in which case I would sprint down the longest route back to our cave - where we lived - to make sure that they didn't try to follow me back to my family.

On that fateful day, I was spotted by a trainer whilst fighting a vicious looking tree and so I decided to make a run for it to escape the trainer. Seems normal, doesn't it? Well, that's when things started to turned hairy very fast. As I was sprinting down the track, I kept looking back to make sure that I wasn't still being followed by the trainer, but every time I did look back, I would see a faint black blur zip out of my vision, making me feel very paranoid. I was soon at the entrance of our little cave and whacked the secret button to get in (A friend of my mother installed the contraption to help protect us) and sprinted inside. My Mum saw my panicked face and rushed to my side.

"Lucas! What's wrong!?" She asked in a nervous tone, sensing my distress.

"I think someone followed me! I-i'm not sure who it is-" And that's when the intruder decided to

"HAH! ha HA!" She laughed evilly. "I have you now! You can't escape me now, you little shit!" The figure at the entrance of the cave was a menacing Zoroark, who seemed to have previously known me. How did it already know me when I didn't even know what Pokemon it was? I don't know, but it soon became clear that it was not here for a friendly chat. It meant business. I assumed it wanted steal from us, so leading it directly to our home probably wasn't the best idea.

"Who are you!? What are you!? Why do you want my child!?" My Mum frantically said, holding me close to her chest to protect me from this intruder.

The mad Zoroark then went on ranting about how it had been trying to steal the priceless treasure from our cave and that we were to hand it over immediately. We knew what it was talking about the Imperial Gem, the most powerful item in the world, produced by a powerful psychic or something and had been stolen by someone. While walking the beach that was conveniently devoid of people and trainers, I spotted something sparkling in the sand and so I went over to inspect. What I found was a rather large diamond shaped gemstone that shone with all the hues of the rainbow, it also seemed to something embedded into the core of the gem was a symbol that looked like a frozen flame . The symbol glowed a magnificent blue along with the rest of the gem. It was very awe inspiring to say the least.

I would've stared at the strange new orb longer, but I heard something entering the beach so sprinted back home - taking the gem with me.

It was pretty obvious why this Zoroark wanted the gem. The gemstone itself gave the user a 4x multiplier for _every _type regardless of the opponents original type, then the user had a 0.25x resistance to every type as well as boosting the all the states of the holder by 3x, and giving the holder the adaptability and sturdy _as well_ their normal ability. It was a truly powerful item, to say the least, and this Pokemon wanted it.

"Now, will you give it to me peacefully? Or do I need to use force?" The Zoroark said evilly, feeling proud of it's threats.

"I-uh, u-uh, w-we'll... um-"

"Act now! Or I'll take your sons' life too!" This is why I hated Zoroarks.

Before Mother could respond, the Zoroark was hit with what seemed like a flaming karate chop and was knocked across the room, only 4 or 5 meters away from us.

In the entrance of the cave stood a new Pokemon, a Lucario to precise. It was my Dad who had delivered a brick break to the intruders' back. Not only was fighting strong against dark, but it was also a critical hit too, so it did a lot of damage to the Zoroark. Unfortunately, the Zoroark was very strong, and as such, the move only knocked her down and enraged her.

"YOU MOTHERFUCKER! HOW DARE YOU-" -Was all it managed to say before being hit in the back once again by an Extremespeed from Mum, before landing into an Aurasphere from Dad. My parents are powerful fighters, and such they could take down enemies far stronger than themselves. Unfortunately, even this wasn't enough to take down pissed off Zoroark, only lowering it half its' original HP. But the advantage they had quickly wore off and soon the Zoroark fought back.

With a mighty roar, the enraged Zoroark swiped at Dad with pitch black wave of darkness, aka Night Daze. This cut deeply into his abdomen and knocked him onto the rocky ground. This really made my heart race, since I thought my parents were the strongest Pokemon in the world. What a wake up call.

"Tyro!" My Mum cried as her loved one hit ground unconscious. She then retaliated this with a iron tail. She jumped up into the air towards the Zoroark, spinning while her tail turn a metallic grey. but before she could make contact with this Iron tail, the Zoroark launched a swift punch to the spinning mass and knocked it back to earth with a loud _**THUD!**_

She also hit the cave floor with a thud, leaving me totally alone and defenseless against this monster. Who ever this Zoroark was, it was far stronger than anything I had ever seen. And if she got hold of the Imperial Gem...

I had to stop it somehow, but I was only a mere Riolu, and this was practically the strongest Pokemon that I'd ever seen in my entire life - even to this day, I struggle to find a close also seemed to be holding a life orb which boosted her power even further.

"You better fucking give me that fucking gem right fucking now, got that?" There was absolutely no way I was going to tell her, let alone give her the powerful gem.

I charged at her, electrifying my fist in order to inflict more damage to the monster.

But I wasn't as strong as I thought I was, and so the Zoroark simply shrugged it of and strode towards me with a smirk on her face.

When she reached me, she grabbed me by my neck and said:

"Well then, if you won't give little ol' me the Imperial Gem, i'll just have to find it and take it myself! Oh and don't forget; my names' Zora. Remember it, ok?" She flung me as hard as she could against the cave wall. When I awoke, I found myself in my mothers' arms with a splitting headache and dried blood all down the side of my head. I turned my head to see my Mum's face. She looked like she had been crying recently as she hugged me tightly in her arms.

"Wha, what happened?" Asked weakly, finding that my strength had left with the thief, Zora.

"She took... everything" She said quietly, still staring in the same direct as she had been when I had awakened. It was unfortunately true as well. Everything was gone, all the furniture, all the ornaments and even the food was gone. The Imperial Gem was also gone, and I hated to think about what the Zoroark was going with such a powerful item. But some else was missing.

"Hey, Mum," I asked weakly. "Where's Dad?" My Mum didn't respond, she started to cry instead.

"He's... in a better place now." She said in between her sobs. I soon realized what she implied and started to cry as well.

I have never forgotten nor forgave Zora did to my family. She is the reason why I train everyday, why I want to become stronger; so that one day I may defeat her.

...|_Present Day_|...

"But that was 5 years ago, and even though we lost all of our possessions, we still had each other, and after a few more years of living in a different cave, I decided that I wanted to go on my own little journey and sneaked onto one of the boats on the shore and made it to Canalave City, traveled to the Lake Verity Forest where I continued to live until deciding to embark on my grand Pokemon journey." As I finished my little story, I noticed that Sparrow was looking at me with a mixture of awe and sadness.

"Woooow..." He said, taking in the information. "That's... that's pretty harsh, really..."

"Yeah, that's why I don't want her come with us." I said angrily. "I hate her for what she's done to me and I don't want that to happen to me!"

"Well... it seem's like a God want's her to join you, so..." He trailed off as he realized what he was implying.

I gave in as I realized that there was, indeed, no way of escaping the fate bestowed upon me. I would eventually have to give in and recruit her, even against my will not to.

Filled with disappointment and anger, I set off towards the abandoned alleyway to recruit my father's murder onto my very own team. Sparrow followed in silence, unble to think of anything to say or to cheer me up.

Zora stood in the center of the alleyway, smirking at us as we returned to her.

"Well well well-"

"Shut up!" I yelled angrily at her, not wanting to hear her taunts. "Just shut up! I don't care what you have to say! Just be quiet and follow me. Don't say or do anything - just follow. OK?"

But she didn't seem to agree with the conditions.

"Humph, it'd be pretty hard to say silent for all of the eight Gyms, am I right?" She said with a sneer.

"What?!" I asked, surprised at the implications of what she had said.

"Don't you remember that I have to 'follow' you through all of the 8 Gyms and the Elite 4 - assuming that you can pass the first Gym battle, that is."

"You- you mean that I have to escort you all the way to the E4!?" I shuddered at the mere thought of having Zora around for the entirety of my journey. I doubt I would be able to handle it. What if she sabotaged my journey? What if she tried to kill me?! But I had no choice. My fate had been decided by whoever had weaved it.

"Yep!" She replied cheerfully. "So ya better get used to me! Now, where are we headed to next, Captain'?"

I clenched my fists and gnashed my teeth. I did, however, manage to reply to her request.

"We are going to Oreburgh City to get _my_ first badge, if you want to get a badge, you can do it yourself!" And with that, I began to walk down the almost deserted street path, trying my best not to lash out and punch something. I just hoped that Zora would be a passenger on this trip and stay a passenger as well.

But I never get what I wish for...

_ ...|Deviation_|...


	6. 6: This girl is on fire

Chapter 6

**This girl is on fire**

_The figure of evil stood victoriously of the figure of power, drawing the infinite power from the fallen one._

_The victorious figure crossed the lands and traveled the seas, searching for more power until one day, the God of all Pokemon decided to banish the figure of evil from the earth._

_But the figure had power beyond imagination._

_It resisted the banishing, but it lost most of it's power in the process._

_...|__Deviation_|...

Our group of four finally exited the cave that separated route 203 and our next objective, the city of dust, dirt, and coal! Yes, we were finally in Oreburgh City, where we would finally get our first badge, the Coal Badge. I was very excited, but I wasn't nervous. For one thing, Aura Sphere - which was a fighting type move - would be able to smash Roarks rock types, and secondly, I was well above any of his Pokemon, over 50 levels in most cases. Sparrow, on the other hand, was not as overpowered as I was. He had trained his turtwig - aka "Twiggy" - a lot and was at an impressive level 16, and if it wasn't for the type advantage Twiggy had, he wouldn't even stand a chance against the higher level Geodude and Onix that Roark possessed. Zora was also going to battle Roark, and I doubted she'd lose, but a massive part of me wanted her to lose to a couple of a pebbles, a rock snake and a blue dinosaur.

So after travelling through the coal mine and finding the Rock type gym leader, Roark, we headed back to the gym (After being sent to the mine by a disturbed trainer, saying that WE had to go find the leader instead of his lazy ass) and prepared for the oncoming battle.

Roark was surprisingly clean, considering the place we found him at and the gym he ran. He had a mullet-like hair that was a reddish-brown color, black, square glasses and dark red Irises. He was wearing a gray jacket, a plain black with grey cargo pants and black boots. For some reason, he was also wearing a red mining helmet with a torch built into it.

"You nervous, Lucas?" Sparrow asked as we entered the refreshingly cool registration, where we would be registered for the Gym battle - so that if we won, we would be recorded as prove that we have legitimately won the badge and, you know, didn't steal it from the gym leader.

"Nah, I got this in the bag. Remember my level? Even if Roark had psychic Pokemon, I would still be able to wreck his team!" I said confidently, absolutely positive that I would be able to sweep his entire team with a single move. And I did. Perfectly, if I say so myself.

We then stepped into the Battle arena, complete with about 15 other people sitting in the stands either side of the arena. A few of them mused at the newbie trainer going for his first badge with a Lucario instead of a normal starter. This was of course false, but they didn't know that. And boy were they in for a shock.

"I am Roark! Leader of the Rock Type Gym! I will not be an easy opponent!" Roark said pridefully, as if he'd never been beaten, which was probably true, since most of the Trainers that attempted to tackle the first Gym Leader usually didn't understand the value of leveling up your Pokemon first, and were sometimes some over themselves that they just barged into the Gym right after getting their Pokemon. Such noobs.

"Now, chose you Pokemon and let the battle begin!" Roark shouted. Nobody ever considers the fact a Pokemon can be a trainer too?

"Well then, Twiggy! I choose you!" Sparrow cried as he tossed Twiggy's Pokeball into the center of the field, releasing him in an explosion of red light.

_"YAY! Battle time!"_ Twiggy cried as he entered the battlefield, ready for his opponent.

"Hmm, interesting, I'd have thought you'd used you Lucario-" Roark began before being interrupted by Sparrow who noticed the look I gave him and quickly replied by say:

"Uhh, his not my-" Sparrow was then interrupted by Roark sending out his own Pokemon into battle.

"Regardless! I choose you! Geodude!" The Geodude appeared onto to the battlefield in the same way Twiggy did, uttering his own battle cry:

_"Prepare for a beating!"_ It was an incredibly original battle cry that struck fear into the hearts of those too weak to even survive a trip. Twiggy was a bit more tougher than that.

"Challenger goes first." Roark said, giving Sparrow a little bow as he did so.

"Uh, OK. Twiggy! Razor leaf!" A flurry of razor sharp leaves flew towards the Geodude, hit the living rock with enough force that it flew all the way across the arena and into the barrier. The small crowd then went wild as the referee announced the Geodude to be KOed.

"Yeah! Go Twiggy!" Sparrow cheered as Twiggy ran back towards him. Twiggy was estatic at beating a Geodude in one shot, usually they'd go down in two or more shots.

"Well, I guess I'll send out... Cranidos!" Roark shouted as he threw Cranidos's Pokeball.

"Twiggy! Use Razor Leaf again!" But Twiggy was slower than Cranidos.

"Cranidos, use headbutt!" Before Twiggy could even get his attack ready, Cranidos charged full speed at Twiggy, knocking him back several meters. This was no where near as effective as Turtwigs Razor Leaf, which one-shot Roarks' Geodude.

This batch of razor sharp leaves was no different to the first batch. The only difference was that Cranidos didn't go flying across the field like a bullet, it instead took the attack full on and after the organic barrage, it simply fell over. Just like that.

I myself was even impressed. But there was still one Pokemon to go, and although twiggy had the type advantage, he wasn't the fastest Pokemon alive, and so if the opponent managed to out sped Twiggy, they could possibly take him out, leaving Sparrow with no Pokemon left, and therefore a defeat.

"Okay, so I'm down to my last Pokemon, and you seem to be taking them down with ease! Well, I assure you that my next Pokemon will be a little more harder to take down! Onix! GO!" Roark released his Onix onto the battlefield to confront a tired looking Twiggy.

"Onix, Rock Tomb!" Roark commanded before Sparrow could even utter his command.

"Dodge then use Razor Leaf!" Sparrow commanded, hoping to take the Onix before it did too much damage to Twiggy.

But the Onix was much faster that Twiggy, and Twiggy found himself trapped between six boulder like rocks, unable to move until the rocks apparently dissolved and freed him from the attack. Twiggy then struck back with a barrage of sharpened leaves, lowering the Onix to just below half HP. Twiggy was in the same situation, he's HP being around 50% as well.

Roark and Sparrow then ordered the same attacks as the last ones. This time, however, Twiggy managed to dodge the rocks shooting from the ground and whipped out a storm of leaves catapulted them at the Onix. The Onix roared in pain as the leaves pelted its rocky skin like bullets. A Critical hit was all it took to ensure victory for u. Or Sparrow technically, but a victory non the less.

The crowd went absolutly wild! It had been a whole week since challenger had beaten Roark, and now this noob had just walked in and sweept his entire team with a single turtwig! It was unbelievable!

Then, Twiggy was cloaked with a bright sparkling light, that pulsated every few seconds.

"Uh, Lucas, what's happening to Twiggy!?" Sparrow said frantically, not knowing what was going on. I, however, know what was going on.

"Twiggy's evolving!" I cried, recalling the moment when I myself had evolved. It was amazing, to say the least, especially the power upgrade and just the overall experience that it provided. It's a shame that I can only evolve once.

After the light faded, Twiggy the Turtwig was no more. In place of Twiggy the Turtwig was Twiggy the Grotle.

"Twiggy! You evolved! That's so AWESOME!" Sparrow then ran up to Twiggy and hugged him tightly, still amazed at the transformation. Twiggy, on the other hand was just as happy that his master was so proud of him.

After Sparrow had gotten over Twiggy's evolution, Roark gave him the Rock Badge and the TM Rock Polish. It was then that I decided to step up and proclaim my request.

"Hey! I'd also like to challenge you to a battle for the Rock Badge!" I called to Roark, attracting a lot of stares as murmurs spread around the stands about a wild pokemon challenging the mighty Roark.

"Du-wha? Wait you can TALK!?" Roark said, clearly shocked at my ability to talk. Obviously he didn't know that ALL Lucarios can speak human.

"Yes, and I want a battle! Or are you too chicken?" I was hoping that taunting him would get him to accept the challenge and not reject it.

"Ah, well, uh I-I don't see why-why not" Roark stuttered, still shocked at my ability to speak. He wasn't the only one either, quite a few viewers in the stand had mouths open and wide eyes while some other more seasoned trainers were simply musing at the talking Lucario attempting to challenge the Rock Type Gym Leader.

"Great, now send out your Pokemon!" Roark grabbed his three Pokeballs from the healing machine (They're in Gyms as well as PokeCenters.) and chose his Pokemon of choice.

"Well then, if a challenge is what want, then a challenge is what you'll get! Geodude, GO!"

Geodude appeared once again onto the battlefield with the exact same battle cry as before.

"Geodude, Rollout!" The Geodude tucked itself into a rocky ball, then threw itself at me. It hit me square on in my chest, but instead of bouncing back however, I managed to grab it and thrust it into the air before shooting an Aura Sphere at it. If you thought that the Geodude flew when Twiggy hit it, then you should have seen it after it was hit by the Aura Sphere! It was shot up into the air accelerating until it smashed into ceiling and fell to the ground with a mighty **THUD!**

The battle went on like this for his two other Pokemon, Onix and Cranidos, both taken out by an Aura Sphere and an Extreme Speed, respectively. The crowd had expanded to 1.5x the size it was when we first arrived, due to the rumor that a wild Pokemon was thrashing the Mighty Roark. And that same crowd was going wild! They were gobsmacked that a wild Pokemon had managed to take out their gym leader! There was a reason why I could achieve this, mostly due to me being a level 66 Pokemon and totally over leveled for the battle. After the battle we collected our badges and TM's, we headed to the PokeCenter to heal up and booked a room to stay in. I was overjoyed to have the first Gym badge in grasp! One down, seven to go!

"Hey Zora, you didn't battle Roark, I thought you were going to. Chicken out, did ya?" I said, taunting her for not partaking in a battle against Roark. Which was weird, since she would be able take out his team just like I did, but with more ease. We were in the PokeCenter, chilling out and admiring our new shinny badges that we received, and wondering how TMs worked. As you can see, I was a bit more interested in why Zora didn't challenge Roark like she said she was going to do.

"Well, I decided that battling really isn't for me, so I decided against battling. Plus, I'm too good for a sentient boulder, a dinosaur and a living, rocky, grey sh-t! Hah, they couldn't even beat me in their dreams!" So, she's so good that her opponents weren't even worth fighting, and suddenly, she wasn't into battling anymore. I find that hard to believe, but regardless, it was ME who was going to be the Pokemon master, not her, so I didn't really care that much about her.

"That's pretty contradictory, Zora. You're so good at battling that you can't even battle. And what made you suddenly go from, 'I'll beat his ass into the ground with my EPIC VICTORY!' to, 'Battling's not my taste anymore'?" Sparrow asked, sensing the irony in her reasons.

"So? I don't care! I decided that I just didn't want to fight! So what!? I know my rights! You can't just FORCE me to battle, ALRIGHT!?" Me and Sparrow both stared at Zora's outburst. For a second, the Zora we knew was gone, replaced with nervousness and fear, as if reliving past memories that were not as pleasant as she wanted. But that Zora was quickly replaced by the proud, devious Zora that forced us to let her accompany us. I was quite honestly surprised by this.

"Uh, Zora, you OK?" I asked, concerned about her outburst. I had known her for about a two days, and even in that short period of time, I had gotten to know Zora a bit more than when we first met.

"Yeah, of course I am! Who do you think I am!? You!? Of course not!" I really had to wonder what made her act like that, not only her earlier outburst, but how she usually acted, why she was so... devious. She acted like a bad ass most of the time and wasn't afraid to insult people.

Regardless, me and Sparrow had lay claim to the Rock Badge! We still had seven badges to go, and eventually the Pokemon that Gym leaders used would become just as powerful as myself. And eventually I would have to face the Elite Four! I had the top bunk of the bunk bed, with Sparrow on the bottom bunk and Zora was presumably on the floor (She had insisted that she didn't need a bed to sleep, so we just let her sleep on the floor). As I lied on the bed, I thought about how I was going to beat the Elite Four and some of the other gyms, like Maylene, who had a bit of an advantage (Maylene even had a LUCARIO! I basically had to verse myself!), but hopefully I would still have the level advantage by that stage, and wouldn't have to worry.

_...|Later that night_|...

"Aah, another day gone and surprisingly my first defeat in _ages_! Those two were certainly a powerful force, I wonder how far the Lucario will go..."

"Not as far as _I_ will go!" Roark was cleaning up and closing down the Gym for the night. He was about to leave the gym when he heard the mysterious voice call out from the stands.

"What?! Who are you? How did you get in here?! What do you want from me!" He cried frantically, desperately hoping that this wasn't a robbery.

The figure was a 17 year old girl, wearing a black top with a fully red PokeBall design on it. She had long black hair that reached down to her lower black and had bright red tips. She also wore black cargo pants and black shoes with red accents.

"What I want, is a battle!"

_...|__Deviation_|...


	7. 7: Nobody said it was easy

Chapter 7

**Nobody said it was easy**

_The figure searched the earth for something that could return it's power to it._

_That something, was the Imperial Gem._

...|_Deviation_|...

After a refreshing night at the PokeCenter, our group was ready to head off to Eterna - the location of the second Gym. The leader of the Eterna - Gardenia - had a team of grass type Pokemon, so both me and Sparrow were at a disadvantage, since Turtwig is a grass type and I was neutral towards grass types. Luckily for me, I still out level all of her Pokemon. So this was a walk in the park me! Unfortunately for sparrow, he had no advantages against Gardenia, so he had to either level up Twiggy, or catch a Pokemon that's strong against grass - which, at this point in our journey, are Starly and Budew, but not much else. Sparrow opted for both options and trained Twiggy to level 27, and managed to catch a wild Starly. Sparrow named her Flappy (Real original, isn't he?) and there was something wrong with her. Flappy's right eye constantly twitched and she moved in very eratic paterns, like when she tried to walk in a straight line, but instead veered of to one side, then veered to the other side, before hopping back to the center of the line and repeating the process. Flappy flew the same way walked, like a drunken bird. But other than that, she was pretty cool. She was also an exceptional fighter as well.

I, on the other hand, managed to convince another Pokemon to join me on my journey! She was a Shinx named Electra, and was _gold_ instead of blue! Electra had been very keen to join my team and hastily agreed to the conditions, accepting one of the five Temp. balls I had ready. She was a bit quirky, but seemed good at battling.

Zora hadn't caught any Pokemon, but who cares about her, right?

Regardless, we backtracked all the way to Jumbilife city (we needed a bike in order to Eterna city, and since we didn't have one, we had to go to Eterna to get a bike) and headed up Route 204 towards Floaroma city. Route 204 had a cave, around 7 trainers and lots of tall grass. We found some Wurples, Starlys and Bidoofs in the tall grass, and inside the Ravaged Path, we found Zubats and Geodudes. I'm pretty sure that there was a Psyduck somewhere in the cave, but I could only hear it stumbling around and complaining about it's perpetual headache.

Upon leaving the Ravaged Path and trekking through the upper part of Route 204, we arrived at Floaroma City, A city so full of flowers that if you were allergic to flowers, you would most definitely explode and die. I didn't have an allergy or anything, but I was still feeling the effects of pollen assaulting my sensitive nose and causing me to fire sneezes like a machine gun. Maybe I did have an allergy.

"Quick, let's- ACHOO! Move on to- ACHOO! Eterna Forest-ACHOO!" Whatever I did, I just could not stop sneezing. In fact, the only way I could find that stopped my sneezing, was in fact, keeping my finger on my tongue. It looked weird, but it worked, so I kept doing it. Sure, I got a few strange looks from time to time, but it stopped me from sneezing and therefore it didn't matter if they were staring at me or not.

"Why would you want to do that? Don't you like the flowers?" Zora - who wasn't sneezing - asked, before she saw the disgust on my face at her sarcasm and the mere thought of having to stay in this stupid city any longer than necessarily. Then, she decided to mess with me, just for the heck of it, "Aww, what's wrong? Does little baby Lucario not want to play with the flowers anymore?"

"No, I oo not wan oo play wif ha fowerth!" Let me just say that it's not that easy to speak with your index finger (or claw) in your mouth. Trust me.

"What was that? I couldn't understand you, you seemed to have something in your mouth. And it's not your claw." Sometimes when I look back on this journey, I wonder how I managed not to kill Zora, especially when you get such immature comments like this on a regular basis.

Ignoring that comment, I made an attempt to retort. Whilst attempting this, I accidentally removed my claw from my tongue, eliminating the immunity I had from the constant stream of pollen.

"I said, I don't- ahh, ACHOO!"

Believe me when I say that I screwed up. By removing my claw from my tongue and thus allowing myself to sneeze, I ended up sneeze on none other than _Zora_. Of all Pokemon to sneeze on, I sneezed I on the one Pokemon that was enrage by simply failing to deliver a successful retort! So, as you couldn't guessed, she was absolutely pissed!

"Did you just SNEEZE on ME!?" Zora wiped the residue and snot off her face, then emitted a sound closely resembling a growl, followed by a string words that shouldn't ever be repeated, before shooting a stream of FIRE! Believe it or not, she knew how to use Flame Thrower, of all moves.

The mini battle was intense, comprising mainly of Zora firing off her varied attacks, like Night Daze and Flame Thrower, and me trying desperately to dodge the constant barrage of flames and darkness. So what stopped the fighting? The police did, of course! They weren't very happy that Zora was lighting the streets on fire like a pyromaniac with a flame thrower, so they decided to detain us. How did they detain us? Remember the Temp. balls I have? The Police also has Temp. balls, and even if a Pokemon is caught, it can still be captured by them.

So we were transported to the police station, where poor old Sparrow had to pay for damages. But Sparrow, being a new trainer and all, did not have the necessary funds to pay for the damages caused by Zora, and so he decided to steal so from ME. To be honest, It sort of was my in a way, since I did sneeze on her.

We then left the Police Center P$50,000 short of what had when we entered. The Police gave us a warning and stated that if we were to cause any more trouble, Sparrow would be imprisoned and me, Zora, Skitz, Flappy and Electra would be confiscated and released after 10 years - which was 2 years less than Floaroma city's jail time for Fire Bugs. Being confiscated didn't really worry me or affect me either, since me and my companions were all wild anyway.

And so our group of seven continued onwards for Eterna forest, where we would face off against the poison & bug type Pokemon that called the forest their home, and try not to get horribly poisoned - which I'm sure was definitely gonna happen. So I made sure to buy lots of Antidotes and potions.

But buying items from a PokeMart when you're a Pokemon is easier said than done. For some unknown reason, humans did not like wild Pokemon just coming in and out of their shops. So, when I entered the Mart, the attendant at the register gave Sparrow a bored look before saying, "Sorry sir, you must have your Pokemon contained in their respective PokeBalls." in a monotone, sounding like he'd said this same phrase many times before.

"Uhm, he's not my Pokemon." Of course this clerk wasn't going to just give in and let me make my purchases.

"Wild Pokemon are not allowed into the PokeMart, please remove it." The clerk said in the same monotone voice.

"_sigh_, Sparrow? Can you get 15 antidotes and 20 super potions for me?" I was just hoping that the next PokeMart we went didn't employ such rude attendants. Jeez.

"Uh, I-I would, but..." Sparrow trailed off, as if thinking whether or not to confess whatever it was he was thinking about.

"What? Don't you have enough money? I can lend you some." I offered, giving him an odd look. After all, it wasn't the first time he'd ran out of Poke, so I couldn't understand why he was so nervous.

"Uh, well, um... You know when, uh, you and Zora got arrested?" I replied with a slow yes, while Zora shot a very menacing glare at him. "Uh- yeah, well... the fine was, um, a bit too much for me to pay for... so, I had to borrow some money from you..." I was fine with this at the time, since I thought that the fine wasn't going to be as much as it was.

"And how much money did you need?" I asked, afraid to know the true amount of the transaction.

"Uhh, it might be around... P$49000." He said nervously, awaiting my reaction. But I couldn't decide who to be angry at; Sparrow - for not telling me earlier about this - or Zora - because she was the one who started the fires.

"Are you SERIOUS!? So we only have something like P$1000 to get ALL the antidotes and potions we need to survive Eterna forset?!"

"Well, it's more like P$500, but seriously, do we actually need all of those antidotes? And what about the saying; 'What doesn't kill you, only makes you stronger'? Right Zora?" Sparrow said in an attempt to worm himself out of trouble. Unfortunately for him, Zora did not share the same feelings about the subject as he did.

"NO, first of all, we DO need those antidotes, because I don't particularly like the sensation of being poisoned! And secondly, poison doesn't tend to take prisoners, so unless you'd like to be bitten by 3 Venipede in order to toughen up, I'd suggest you find a way to get enough money!" Once again, Zora snapped at Sparrow ended up yelling at him about his stupid decisions. Once she'd finished her little rant, the whole shop went silent. Every one in the shop was starring at us, even the bored clerk seemed amusing by Zora's outburst. A few seconds later, I decided to break the painful silence by suggesting that we could find a job to do, and thankfully Zora broke her deathly stare away from Sparrow and accepted my idea.

We ended up doing a few mundane jobs like mowing, gardening, and even a few specialized jobs, like for instance; I got a job destroying a few boulders, Zora got a job warding away a few pesky Ghosts, Electra helped to charge up batteries for people. Sparrow didn't have much to do really, apart from some of the gardening jobs and picking up trash and Flappy couldn't even walk in a straight line, so people didn't even bother to give her jobs and Skitz actually helped heal two trainers Pokemon after they fainted. But at the end of the day, managed to collect a whopping P$352 and a half eaten sandwich - was thrown at Zora and was forcefully returned. Luckily, it was enough to purchase 4 antidotes and a single potion. Electra pointed out that we could have just brought a few repels and run through forest, but by the time she spoke up, we had already brought the potions and antidotes and nothing but a few PokeDollars left, so saved the idea for the next time we had to prepare to go somewhere that involved fighting wild Pokemon. It did mean that I couldn't recruit any wild Pokemon while we had the repel on, and from what I've heard, Repel smells absolutely revolting to wild Pokemon - which me, Electra and Skitz happen to be.

After completing our jobs and preparing ourselves, we left the flower city known as Floaroma city and headed towards Eterna forest - where disaster was sure to strike.

After all, it was a forest full of poisonous Pokemon. An we only had 4 antidotes and 3 potions - 1 from the shop and 2 that we had already.

I hope we don't lose anyone...

...|_Deviation_|...


	8. 8: You're going down

Chapter 8

**You're going down**

_And the figure of evil called himself,_

_Veloxios the Swift_

...|_Deviation_|...

"Bugs are so fucking creepy! They keep crawling all over me, they stare at me with their stupid eyes, one of them poisoned me and I swear that Caterpie was fucking humping my leg!" Zora cried, attempting to stomp on the Caterpie which was attempting hump her leg. It sprinted away before she could crush it, however.

As you could probably tell, we were in Eterna forest. And we were having an absolute _blast_ in there! We had already used up all of our antidotes and potions, were swarmed by at least 100 Butterfree's (believe it or not) and had been constantly challenged by and endless stream of bug trainers, who used that same stupid poisonous bugs as the rest of the stupid forest. Despite all of this trauma, we were only half way through this nightmare and the forest seemed to be getting thicker and thicker. Occasionally we would stumble upon a Silcoon that tried to attack us, but would instead just repetitively harden as we walked past it. I couldn't understand why all of the wild pokemon were so aggressive towards us. Actually, they were more aggressive towards Sparrow, probably because he was a human, and I was a wild Pokemon, technically. But regardless, we were closing in on our goal of escaping this horrific forest, when we encountered an unusual obstacle.

It was a huge, centipede like creature that stood with half its body raised off the ground, like a centaur. It's segmented body was red with purple circles on the sides and had dark gray under belly, with red and purple horns on both its head and its tail. It seemed to just stare at us with its large yellow eyes - like all the stupid bug Pokemon liked to do. I had never seen this Pokemon before, so I assumed it was one of the new Unova or Kalos region Pokemon. And boy did this bug look angry. At Zora.

"Hey! What sorta Pokemon is that?" I asked, inquiring about this new, mysterious Pokemon that stood before us. I would have just squished it like the other bugs in the forest, but It was much larger then the usual bugs that inhabited Eterna forest. It also looked like it had a tough exoskeleton as well. It was going to take a bit more than a simple stomp to kill this centipede.

"Uh, I think that's a Scolipede!" Sparrow replied, obviously recognizing it. "I heard about this a while ago when they discovered Unova! I don't know what it's doing all the way in Sinnoh, though..."

"Well, it shouldn't be to hard to take down, right? It'll just take a bit more effort- wait, I think there's more!"

Two more bug Pokemon rolled out from a nearby tree and joined the what appeared to be the leader of the little group. The new bugs (Sparrow recognized them to be Whirlipedes) was grey and spiked ball, with the same purple circles on its round, segmented body as the Scolipede. They also stared at us with the same yellow eyes as their leader.

"YOU!" the leader screeched, scowling at Zora, who returned an equal glare back at it. "How DARE you follow us! Have you not learnt from your PREVIOUS lesson!?"

"Uh, you know these guys?" I said to Zora, who's left eye was now twitching in rage.

But she did not respond. Instead, she stood her ground and continued to stare at the Scolipede with absolute rage and - of all things - _fear_. It was the same look of vulnerability that she'd worn when Sparrow questioned her reasoning after she bailed from the Gym battle she said she was going to do.

For a while, no one said anything, no one moved.

"How did you get here?" She growled at the Scolipede in a demanding yet fearful voice, as if her long lost rival had returned.

"That is NO buisness of yours, _Zora_. What I will tell you is that only ONE of us will be leave THIS forest alive!"

"RAAAAAR!" Zora suddenly emitted a deafening roar before charging at the Scolipede. She swung her claws - which were glowing with a dark light - at the giant bug slashed a huge gash in the Scolipede's sensitive underbelly. It stumbled back, roaring in pain as it clutched the bleeding wound with it's stubby little legs. The two whirlipedes, sensing their leader's pain, swooped in to poison the attacking Zoroark.

What they were not prepared for, was Zora's next attack.

As the Whirlipedes rolled in to attack, Zora released a massive stream of blazing fire - bigger than the stream she shot at me back in Floroma city. One Whirlipede dodged the stream of pure death and prepared to smash into her and hopefully poison her with its poisonous barbs. The other Whirlipede was not so lucky. I caught the full blast of the flames and was flung back into a nearby tree - completely cracking its exoskeleton from the impact, allowing blood to pour out of the cracks. It certainly was not going to get back up.

The second Whirlipede flew at Zora with its poisonous barbs extended, but Zora intercepted it with a Night Daze, shattering its shell like china - effective ripping it in half.

The battle field was covered in blood and guts from the two now dead Whirlipedes. Zora stood on one side of the field, while the injured Scolipede stared nervously at the Zoroark from the opposite side of the field. His cut was bleeding rapidly and he was sure that if he didn't heal soon, it would bleed to death.

"HEALER! NOW!" The Scolipede cried out to the forest, as if expecting it to heal him. But it wasn't the forest that came to his aid, it was a fearful and nervous Togepi that came to his aid, performing a Heal Bell and therefore restoring its health and healing the gaping wound to a thin, almost invisible scar. But instead of using this moment to attack, the Scolipede quickly fled the battle before Zora could catch it. While he was escaping, the Scolipede swung the lower-half of its body towards the Togepi, slamming one of its spikes into its shell.

"RAAAH! YOU CAN'T ESCAPE ME!" She roared viciously, filled with more rage than when I had sneezed on her. "I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN AND RIP YOUR HEAD OFF!" She then cut a nearby tree down by swiping at it with a Night Daze, then stomping off in the general direction of the exit.

I noticed the poor Togepi laying on the ground, bleeding slightly. It was alive, but looked pretty injured, so I wanted to help it.

"Hey, the Scolipede left behind its Togepi! And it's injured! We need to get it to a PokeCenter!" But Zora had a different opinion on the baby Pokemon.

"I say that we BURN it! It was helping _him_ after all!" She said angrily.

"I think it was forced to heal him, after all it was trembling and he didn't bring it with him." Sparrow said, taking a liking towards the walking egg.

"_sigh_, whatever, just make sure it doesn't bother me." Zora submitted crossly.

We walked on the forest path for half an hour before I worked up the courage to ask what had just happend. What made it hard to ask her was that with every bug Pokemon we encountered, she would violently burn it with a stream of fire, leaving behind a burnt carcass.

"Hey, uh, Zora?" I asked timidly, half expecting her to spin around and burn me.

"_What!?_" She growled back, clearly agitated by the previous encounter. I was starting to have second thoughts about asking what happend.

"Uhh, I wanted to know what happened back their with the Scolipede, like why did it happen?" To my surprise, Zora didn't turn around and attack me, but instead just sighed.

"Fine, you want to know what happened? I'll tell you what happened."

...|_34 years earlier_|...

_In a wide open meadow, somewhere near Route 8, a family of Zoroarks and Zorua lived carefree and happily through the ages. Generation after generation, they remained undisturbed. Until one fateful day, a day I will never forget._

"Hey! Hey Zorill! I'm going to the forest! You want to come?!" Said an eager Zorua, growing bored of the rolling meadows she called home.

"WHAT!? You want to go to the forest!? Don't you remember what happened last time you went there? You could get killed!" Zorill replied, attempting to persuade his friend from going into 'the forest' where Venipedes and other creepy crawlers lived.

This little Zorua had already had an encounter with the creatures of the forest, but was determined to make it through the forest at least once.

"Come on, were just going go through the forest, maybe beat up a few bugs here and there, you know? Time to have a little fun! It's all ways SOOOO boring here anyway."

"First off, you shouldn't just go around beating up random Pokemon, that'll just get you a bad reputation, secondly, it's only boring here for you because you beat up everyone you don't like or anyone who beats you at something and so you got bad reputation!" Zorill yelled back. This little Zorua was not the most kind hearted Pokemon, and as you could guess, she didn't have the best rep.

"Fine then! I'll go by myself!" And before Zorill could protest, the little Zorua sprinted past him and into the dense, dark forest.

The sun was falling behind the earth, creating waves of gold, pink and blue in the sky. But the foliage of the forest blocked out most of the beautiful sunset and drenched the forest in a dark, brooding light that made the forest seem haunted during the night and to make things worse, ghost Pokemon lived in and around the forest, pranking Pokemon that tried to pass through the dense forest or - if luck betrayed you - would curse you.

But the darkness was nothing for the little Zorua, after all; dark beats ghost. But that's not what the little Zorua feared. What she feared, was the bug types that called the forest their home.

_Okay, I can get through it, I can get through it. I am stronger than they are! I can take a few overgrown bugs!_ The little Zorua thought to herself, preparing to tackle the upcoming challenge that would present it's self.

"Oh, ho ho! So you _did_ come back! And without any friends either! Did your friends chicken out? Or... do you _not_ have friends? Ha! Hah hah HA!" The cackling creature stood in front of the little Zorua, teasing her lack of allies.

"I DO have friends, they just didn't come with me to the forest!" She retorted, referring to Zorill, who didn't agree to accompany her to the forest.

"HA ha HAA! So you think you can take me ALONE? When you couldn't even take me down with your friends!? HAH! You make me laugh!" The creature laughed evilly, loving the uncertainty that grew inside of the little Zorua.

"No, I am stronger than before, _Venipede_!" She cried, the uncertainty inside her vanished, and instead was replaced with confidence and a thirst for revenge. The little Zorua had previously battled the Venipede, but had lost horribly, and swore that she would be back with friends to have her revenge.

But no one would go to the forest with her. Except for one Pokemon.

"Yeah! We're better than you!" A voice rang out from the trees as an Electrike jumped down from the foliage and struck a battle pose.

This Electrike, named Strike, was one of those Pokemon who had heard of the Unova region and decided to travel to it, mainly for a fresh start or a new adventure in a foreign land. The latter was true for Strike.

The little Zorua liked Strike, she even had a crush on him and -to the immense surprise of her friends and family - didn't try to beat him up like she did with everyone else.

...|_Deviation_|...

"Wait, you had a _crush_ on someone- Uuurgh!" Sparrow began, before he was swiftly punched in the gut by none other than Zora.

"NO! I said the little Zorua had a crush on him, not me! Anyway..."

...|_Deviation_|...

"Oh ho HO! So you _did_, bring a friend after all! Well, let us repeat history, but with a _twist_! MINIONS! Prepare for a BATTLE! EHAHAHA HA!" He laughed manically as two more Venipedes appeared from a nearby tree, posing their own battle poses.

Strike wasted no time in attacking the bugs by charging recklessly towards the leading Venipede whilst surrounded by crackling electricity. A volt tackle.

**CRASH-CRACKLE!**

Strike slammed his body into the bug leader with surprising force and speed, knocking the wind out of the Venipede.

But the minions were quick and both shot a stream of sticky string at Strike, completely immobilizing him and leaving him defenseless.

"STRIKE! F*CK OFF YOU STUPID BUGS!" The little Zorua sprinted towards the left Venipede and attempted to tackle it. It countered by swinging its spiked tail at her and batted it away like a baseball. She flew for a few seconds before slamming headfirst into a tree.

The little Zorua shakily got her feet before she was tackled and pinned down face first on the ground. Her head was then twisted to face the battle field and what was revealed would haunt her forever.

The lead Venipede was standing on top of Strike with a claw extend, as if ready to slash the Electrike it was resting on. It was also wearing an evil grin.

"HAH! Even with you _boyfriend_, you couldn't beat me! Now, he will pay the price! MUAHAHA EHAH HAH HA! As the bug cackled manically, Strike tried desperately to escape its sticky prison. But he failed.

"Mpphh! Mmmphh mph MMMPHH!" His cries were muffled, but the little Zorua knew exactly what he was say; he was crying for help.

"HAHAH! Say your last words, Electrike! Because today will be your last!"

"NOOOOO!" The little Zorua cried, but to avail.

The Venipede drove its extended claw into the Electrikes skull. The little Zorua watched in horror at the sight of her crush being killed by her sworn enemies. Suddenly, the little Zorua began to glow with a dark, purple energy before exploding violently.

The blast flung the three Venipedes deep into the forest, while also wiping out the trees and vegetation in a 1km radius. In the Epicenter of the crater lay a little Zorua, sobbing about her loses. Next to her lay the silent body of Strike and a strange, glowing stone. The stone had a blue glow and a power symbol in the center. It was the Imperial Gem. It was all the little Zorua had to remind her of her crush, Strike, and also a way heal her growing guilt - the guilt of not being strong enough to protect the one she loved.

The little Zorua was alone...

The little Zorua was lost...

The little Zorua was...

...Zora...

...|_Deviation_|...

"W-wow, I never realized that the Imperial Gem was yours... I-i'm sorry..." I was absolutely amazed at Zora's sad story. I kept expecting her to turn around and say; "HAH! Gotcha, doofus!", but she kept a straight face, staring off into the distance; as if reliving the painful memory. No wonder she got so pissed at Sparrow whenever he questioned her motives.

"It's... it's okay. That's the reason I wanted it so bad. But whatever! I can see the exit! Lets get out of this sh*thole!" Zora said as she went from the sad, resentful Zora that was reliving past memories to the Zora that we knew so well; the sassy, untamable girl who acted like she owned the world.

The rest of the journey through the forest was rather uneventful, Zora kept burning the bugs that were unfortunate and crossed the path were burnt like the rest of the bugs, except with less anger and fury.

I was glad to be out of the forest, were bugs didn't hump your leg or crawl on you all the time. I was also glad that we were one step closer to achieving my goal of becoming the Pokemon Master!

And thankfully, the next gym would be easier than the forest we just went through. Well, for me at least...

...|_Deviation_|...


	9. 9: I'm not always strong

Chapter 9

**I'm not always strong**

_And with a mask of obscurity, Veloxios the Swift begun the relentless search for the priceless object._

...|_Deviation_|...

I'd never thought I'd be so happy to be out of a forest, even though I live in a forest. But I was. I should say that I'm happy to be away from the infinite swarms of bugs that inhabited Eterna forest, rather than the forest itself.

I was also excited about my Gym battle I was going to have with Gardenia. Of course I was going to out level her Pokemon, but I wasn't interested in just winning the badge - I loved the thrill of a battle! Winning was just an added bonus, because eventually the Gyms would get harder and more strategic than the earlier ones. And the Elite Four would definitely be a test of endurance. But for Sparrow, it was going to be an uphill battle for the entire journey. Unlike me, he had to raise his Pokemon from level 5 (I had to raise Electra and from level 14, but I was at level 68 at this point), so he had some work to do.

Zora was getting bored with the constant walking and so suggested that we get bikes. I was fine with that, since we would need the bikes to cross the bike road - because they can't just build a walk path or something.

"So how are we going get the bikes? They aren't exactly cheap, and were broke, remember?" While Sparrow was pointing out the obvious, Zora was hatching a brilliant, yet risky plan.

"I think I have an Idea-"

"Does it involve killing, stealing or a combination of anyone?" I wasn't the biggest fan of Zora's plans, especially when they involved killing people or stealing their possessions.

"Hmmm... well, it MIGHT involve stealing, and if the plan doesn't work properly, it MAY also involve murder. But that is a maybe-"

"Fine! What is your plan, then?" Sparrow spat, not really liking the fact that people could get hurt with her plan, and so was expecting the worst.

I was personally expecting her to confess something along the lines of a master heist, like a bank robbery.

"I think that we should just run in, take a bike or two, then run out again - just like that."

"So... were going to rob a bike shop? Won't the police track us down and arrest us? I don't want to go jail! And I'll lose Flappy and Twiggy! Are you sure there's no other way to do this? You know, like, do jobs again-"

"There is no fucking way i'm doing those shitty jobs again! Anyway, you don't have to do anything, I can just go in, steal the bikes and escape with out any fuss. Unless they have a Psychic or something, in which case blood may spill. "

"So you're going to disguise yourself, and rob a bike shop." I said, trying not to care about Zora's magnificent plan.

"Yep, good plan, am I right? Now wait here, I'll be back in a jiffy!" She then morphed into black haired girl that robbed us back in Jumbilife City, grabbed my bag off the bunk - tipping out the sleepy Skitty, Skitz - and stormed proudly out of the PokeCenter.

...|_Eterna City Bike Shop_|...

"Thankyou for purchase, please come again!" Said the shopkeeper to another happy customer as he took his new fold able bike and stuffed it into his bag.

_"Master! I've detected a Thief!"_ Cried a terrified Espeon as she detected the disguised Zoroark that sneaked into the shop, reading it's mind to discover it's hidden intentions.

"WHAT!? Were is the thief, Purpura?!" The shopkeeper asked it panicked Espeon, sharing her emotion.

_"The black haired girl, wearing a black, PokeBall top! I think she's a Zoroark! And a strong one too!" _

"OK, so we'll shutdown the shop, call the police, and try not to get shot again." The shopkeeper then moved his hand under the counter to flip the Emergency Lock down Switch, but he couldn't find it.

"Wha-What?! Were's the switch?!:

"Ah, sir? Can I help you? You looked panicked - can't find the Panic Button?" The Shopkeeper jolted up, hitting his head on the underside of the counter as he did, looking up at the black haired, black PokeBall shirt girl staring back at him with an evil grin.

"Y-you're the thief! Please don't hurt me! Take m-my money, just please don't hurt me!" He screamed fearfully, not wanting to be killed by the shape-shifting fox.

"Hey, I don't want to hurt you, I just want to visit my _favorite_ shop in all of Johto!"

"Uhh, we're in Sinnoh-"

"SHUT THE FUCK UP! I KNOW WHAT CONTINENT! I mean, sometimes, I mix up my continents; SO DON'T JUDGE ME!" Zora slammed her fist into the wooden counter, creating a massive splintered crack in the counter - making the shopkeeper scream and cower in fear.

"S-s-SORRY! Please! Don't hurt me! I'm Sorry!" He cried, trembling in absolute fear.

"My dear sir, I am the one who should be sorry" Zora said, faking sincerity " I shall be off, have a good day sir!" She said before walking casually out of the shop and back in the direction of the PokeCenter.

"_Wait!_" The Espeon cried, realizing what the thief was doing.

"W-what is it Purpura?! The panicked Shopkeeper asked his Espeon.

"_She's wearing an Illusion!" _She exclaimed frantically, before jumping unexpectedly at Zora. She managed whack Zora with clawed paw, leaving a small mark on her cheek. Zora growled at the Espeon angrily and counter-attacked by violently slashing at Purpura's throat. She flew at the wall, splattering blood on the wall before falling to flood in a bloody heap.

"PURPURA!" The shopkeeper cried , horrified at the sight of his assistant in a mangled mess on the floor.

"Humph, that's what you get bitch!" Zora snapped back. She calmly walked out of the bike shop, leaving the weeping shopkeeper to mourn he's loss.

...|_PokeCenter Room 29_|...

"D-does the Zoroark usually act like that?" Said a shaken up Togepi. She was new to the party and was unsure of the Zoroark known as Zora.

"Well, sometimes she does," I replied "But sometimes she can be somewhat calm."

"She's a meanie! I was just sleeping peacefully here, then she just _chucks_ me out your bag!" Skitz was not happy about the rude awakening.

Electra decided to join in the conversation with her own encounter with Zora.

"She always calls me little puppy! Like, she knows that my name is Electra, but she keeps calling me that! Aaargh! Why can't she at least call me little lion, but noooo, she _has_ to call me little puppy! It's sooo ANNOYING! I just want to-"

"Merry Christmas! Gifts for all!" Zora cried victoriously as she barged through the door of our Room. She chucked two of the folded up bikes at me and Sparrow. Sparrow failed to catch his bike, as he was asleep when Zora had rudely barged in. I had managed to catch the flying projectile that was the bike, but I failed to catch my bag that was forcefully thrown at my face by Zora.

"Oww... So you got the bikes? Please tell me that you didn't kill anybody." Sparrow was rubbing his head where the bike had hit him.

"I didn't kill a _person_, I may have killed an Espeon, though."

"Zora!" Sparrow yelled crossly.

"I said I MAY have killed it, you weren't there!" Yeah, we weren't there, but the media was.

"Uh, you should probably checkout the news at the moment..." I said, motioning to the tv in the corner of the room.

"...here at the Eterna city Bike Shop with Edward Maron, the owner of the Bike Shop, who was robbed by a wild Zoroark. The Zoroark - transformed to look like a 16 year old girl - took off with 3 bikes, murdering Edwards' Espeon, Purpura who was employed as a Thief detector, in the process .

"O-one moment; I-i'm being threaten b-b-by the-the thief, then she killed Purpura! *sobs*.

"The victim has been very traumatized by his loss. Surprisingly, the thief only took the bikes and not any of the funds that the shop was saving up."

Sparrow was not pleased with this.

"Why couldn't you have just, you know, just disguised yourself and the shop, grabbed the bikes and left?! Why did you have to kill his precious pokemon, threaten him and traumatize him!? you're such an asshole sometimes, you know that!?"

"Of course I know that! That's why I do that; because it's funny!" Zora replied. She liked to mess with people and Pokemon. It made her feel... Superior. "Plus, she scratched me! She deserved

"You know what?" Sparrow began "FFFFUCK YOU! You're the most annoying, heartless person I've ever meet! You know who's better than you!" He hesitated as he thought through his next thought.

"Who's better than me, little boy?" Zora teased, trying to annoy Sparrow. But little did she know, that annoying Sparrow like that would backfire. Sparrow didn't like to be called 'little boy', as that's what the bullies at his old school.

"You, you are as bad as the Scolipede we meet in Eterna Forest!" Yeah, Zora was not ready for that. Surprisingly, Zora did not cut Sparrow in any way, shape or form, but instead just looked guilty and pained.

"Wh-what? I-wh-y-you're lying! I could never be as bad as him!" She countered, desperately clinging to the belief that she was better than that low life Scolipede.

"Sparrow, I don't think you should-"

"Shut up Lucas, I know what I'm doing! Zora, you know how you killed that Espeon, just because you could? That's exactly what the Scolipede did! He did it because he could! He also picks on other Pokemon as well!And you remember how you killed the Shop Keepers Espeon? Scolipede killed your boyfriend just like you killed Purpura! You are _exactly_ like Scolipede and you know it!" This was the first time that I've seen Sparrow speak with such force, much like how Zora spoke.

But Zora - oh man was she broken. She had lost her defiant, sassy look that was trademark with her, and was replaced with a sad, guilty face - like she had just realized that someone she loved had died. In fact, she was beginning to _cry_! Tears were starting to form in her eyes as Sparrow finished his little rant.

Sparrow then stomped out of the room angrily, leaving me and Zora alone our room.

Once Sparrow had left the room, Zora collapsed onto the bunk bed and proceeded to cry. I was in shock to be honest - after all, I had never seen her cry before.

I sat onto the bed with her, and she proceed to cry on my shoulder. It felt awkward for the strong defiant Zora to be crying on my shoulder like she was now.

"Am I really that bad..." She said sadly.

"Well, you sorta had a reason to kill the Espeon, and... you may have done some bad things, but you did it for a good reason, I mean, you did it to help us instead of just yourself." I said, trying to comfort her.

"Yeah... I guess you're right..." She said, cheering up slightly.

_I-i can't even believe that Sparrow said those things, it's just not like him..._ I thought to myself. She eventually stopped crying and fell asleep. To be honest, I thought that she looked cute when she slept.

I just hope she would be alright...

...|_Eterna city_|...

"Stupid Zora." Sparrow mumbled to himself as he roamed the streets of Eterna under the night sky. "Why does she have to be so... mean! So what if she lost her stupid boyfriend! I _hate_ being called 'little boy'! I honestly don't understand how Lucas deals with her!"

But as Sparrow walked down the brightly light path, he began to regret his decision to yell at Zora.

"Hmm... maybe I was a bit ruff when I snapped at her, yeah... maybe I should go back and apologize..."

"Hey! Hey you! No, not you! NO! The brown haired kid! No, for the love of God! YOU! YES! Yes you! You look like you could use some sweet revenge!" A ruff looking man approached Sparrow through the stream of people out travelling about in the middle of the night - for what ever reason. The guy in question looked like the type of guy that your Mum would tell you not to ever talk to, and was probably a drug dealer.

"Well, I sorta already got my revenge, so..." Sparrow started, remembering the conversation he had with Zora. Now he was really feeling guilty about it.

"Well, I can tell that you still want to get your revenge, no? I can help you with that! I see how mean and brutal she is to you! How she ignored your request to prevent innocent blood from spilling!" Sparrow was not convinced by this old hobo's speech, but was suddenly over come by a feeling of intense rage and paranoia. I knew that it was Zora's personality, and that if I wanted to be a Pokemon Trainer, I would have to learn how to deal with this sort of thing. But for some reason, I could not think of a reason why I should even _trust _her, let alone forgive her actions. I wanted - no, _needed_ to get my revenge on her! I needed to _eliminate_ her!

"Give me my revenge."

The hobo smiled at the teens response, mentally celebrating his victory. Kids were so much more easier to manipulate than adults, but Pokemon were even easier the kids. But the only Pokemon he knew could even stand a chance against Zora, was simply too smart to fall into his traps. But this kid was somewhat close to the furry bitch, and with the power he had acquired, the hobo would be able to enact his own revenge on Zora.

It was time to avenge his fallen sister, _Purpura_.

It was time to slay the beast that had ruled his life with an Iron Fist.

It was time to kill Zora the Zorua - as he had known her to be.

...|_Deviation_|...


	10. 10: What doesn't kill you

Chapter 10

**What doesn't kill you**

_An object that would give him the unlimited power that he once had. - The story of Veloxios._

...|_Deviation_|...

What have I done? Am I really like Scollipede? A senseless killer, with no regard for the life of others, no care for those I hurt? Maybe so, but I didn't chose this path like Scollipede did. No, this nature was forced upon me by the same Pokemon they claim I copy. I wasn't always the deviant, mean spirited Zora that everyone knows me as. Once upon a time, I was kind to others, I was respectful - to a degree, but that all changed when I first met Scollipede. But that's a story for another time. I'm starting to feel better now. After all, it's not my fault that I like killing people just because, it's the Scolipedes fault. And that's what I kept telling for a whole half hour - just siting on the roof of the of the PokeCenter, constantly repeating the phrase in my head to calm down. I had awoken in the middle of the night after having another dream about Striker, and decided to part from the sleeping Lucas and jump onto the roof. Sparrow had yet to return - and when he did, I was seriously going punch his fucking gut out.

But regardless, I was thinking about going back to Lucas and trying to convince him to leave without Sparrow, but then something strange caught my eye. It was some sort of ghost, floating around the PokeCenter, staring straight at me with its big glowing eyes. To be exact, it was a Haunter.

"What the hell do you want?" I asked the ghost, not wanting to deal with a ghost at this time of night - which happened to be well past midnight.

"Well... you looked sad, and I thought that I could maybe... you know, cheer you up?" The female Haunter said meekly.

"Fine, I guess I could use some cheering up..." I was feeling down, but I knew I could get over my troubles with or without the Haunter. But something about her intrigued me, since I was used to the cheeky little bastards that hung around haunted houses and such. But this little Haunter was somewhat kinder than the average ghost, and more caring as well - more caring than me at least, but why do I care.

"Ok, but, what's wrong?" The ghost asked. "You seem very guilty about something..."

"Hmm, fine, I'll tell you what I've done; I killed an innocent Espeon just because I like doing that sort of thing." I said flatly.

"Wwwhat!? You killed a Pokemon!? Seriously? WOOOW... Why would you do that? I couldn't personally kill someone, since I'm dead myself and so I wouldn't want to do this to anyone else, but it's your choice I guess!" She commented cheerfully.

"Yeah... whatever. What's your name, ghosty?" If you haven't figured it out yet, I like to give people annoying nicknames. Especially when they hate the nickname. The Haunter, however, didn't seem to dislike her nickname.

"My name is Taki and I'm a Haunter! Pleased to meet you!" Taki said happily.

"Ok, well, my name is Zora, what are you doing around here anyway and how did you find me?" I asked, eager to get some questions answered.

"Oh, well, I've been following you around since you left Eterna Forest - because I heard that you were travelling with the Pokemon Trainer! That Lucario you're with, I've heard that he's that his going to beat the Pokemon Master and everything! AND that his a wild Pokemon as well! THAT'S SO COOL! I also wanted to be a Pokemon Trainer, but I think I died, and Ghosts can't really hold Pokeballs or a bag - plus, I might scare someone! *gasp*! Imagine if I became a Pokemon master because I managed to scare my way to the E4 and scare them to bits! That would be AWESOME!" Taki ranted, so overwhelmed by the excitement of even talking about becoming a Pokemon Trainer that she looked like she would explode at any moment. I sorta wished she would.

"Ok... well, do you want to join our team? I'd have to ask Lucas, but I'm sure he would let you join his team." I said, hoping that Taki wouldn't burst from excitement.

"*GASP*! REALLY?! THAT WOULD BE SOOOO AWESOME! Do you think Lucas would like? I like him - he so awesome and handsome and strong and awesome and-"

"What!? You like Lucas, as in _like_ like Lucas?"

"Yeah! He's so awesome! I would've talked to him earlier... but I'm to shy-"

"Well I couldn't give a single fuck about who you like or whatever. Anyway, better be heading back to our room, so if you want to come with me and I'll introduce you to him."

"YAYAYAYAYAYAYAY!" She cried excitedly grabbing me in a hug. The hug didn't hurt me, but it must of stung for Taki as she quickly jumped back laughed nervously as she regained her posture.

"Heh heh, owww... I forgot I was a ghost... anyway, let's get going! I want to meet Lucas!" She then went on another rant about how amazing Lucas was while I tried my best to block out her annoying voice. And with that, we made our way to our PokeCenter Room, unaware of who had entered our room...

...|_Deviation_|...

"I think that we should slit _her_ throat, so that she can get a little taste of her own medicine."

"I-i don't want to _kill_ her, I just don't want her in our group... after all, killing her would make us exactly like her, wouldn't it?"

Me and the Hobo were discussing the various ways of eliminating Zora, although I really did not want kill her, I would if it was my last resort.

"No, because we have a reason to kill her, she didn't." He replied in a stern voice.

"Well, OK, but wait, why do you have a reason?" The Hobo then gave me a pained look before he spoke.

"Because, Purpura was my sister." This confused me, as he was implying that an Espeon was his sister. He noticed my confused face and decided to explain what he meant.

"I am actually an Espeon, and if you don't believe me, I will show you." The Hobo then stood up, began glowing in a bright white light, before revealing an Espeon sitting on the park bench where the old man had once been sitting.

"Wh-what?! You know transform!? But- I thought only Ditto and Mew knew transform, and Zorua and Zoroark knew how to disguise themselves and stuff... wow..." I said, completely blown away at the Espeons power.

"What level are you? I'd imagine you'd be a high level Pokemon. Let me get my PokeDex." I reached into my pocket and fished out my trusty Pokedex, aiming it at the Espeon.

"I have trained for many years, so I would say that I am, in fact, a high level Pokemon."

"BEEP-BEEP! ESPEON, MALE, LEVEL 100-"

"WHAT!? Wow! Your seriously a level 100 Pokemon? The only other Pokemon I know that's a level 100 is Zora..."

"Humph" The Espeon grunted, "If that's so, then I will need that Imperial Gem... or I could simply outwit her, wouldn't be hard after all-"

"Wait a second, how do you what the Imperial Gem is?" I asked "Apparently it belongs to Zora, but Lucas's family originally had and Mew is making Zora travel with Lucas in order for Zora to get the Imperial Gem, so why do you want it?" I was curious as to what this Espeon's reason for wanting the Imperial Gem would be.

For a few seconds, he just stared out into the midnight sky, contemplating the answer he would give me.

"I want the Imperial Gem, because it belongs to _me_, not some Lucas or Zora, but _me_. After all, I created it."

"You created it? That's pretty cool, but why did you make?" I asked curiously.

Once again, he spent a few seconds to ponder the question before he answered it.

"To be honest, I wanted power and immorality. I want to be more powerful than even Arceus - or any of the Legendaries really. And so I created a shinning jewel, embedded with the combined powers of all the elemental plates, as well as being infused with all the anti-super effective berries; Occa, Passho, Wacan, Rindo, Yache, Chople, Kebia, Shuca, Coba, Payapa, Tanga, Charti, Kasib, Haban, Colbur, Babiri and Chilan berries, to name a few. I also embedded all of the battle items, such as X-Attack and X-Defence, creating the amazingly powerful Imperial Gem!" He said proudly. I don't know how you infuse berries into stones, but it must of been complicated and hard.

I whistled in response to the long and amazing explanation.

"Woooow, it must have been precious alright."

"Oh it was, and I was deeply saddened when it was stolen from me. By none other than a love struck Eevee, known as Eve. You know who she gave it to? A 'Handsome and sexy Riolu' as she had told me when I began asking questions about the gems whereabouts. I was _furious_! I simply couldn't believe that she had stole my prized gem and given it to some stupid Riolu! The Riolu found it on the beach because Eve was too shy to directly give it to him. Then, guess who comes along and steals it? Zora! She steals it from the Riolu's family and then it's stolen from her by a Goddamn FUCKING MEW!" The Espeon said in absolute rage at the mere thought that HIS precious gem was in the hands of a stupid legendary. He was certainly not having a fun time, I could tell.

"So... Zora doesn't really own it?" Last time I checked, it apparently belonged to either Lucas or Zora.

"Of course not! Why would such imbeciles such as them?! It was mine in the beginning, and so shall it be in the end!" He said triumphantly.

"Well... I guess I should see how Lucas and Zora are going, after all; I did leave them alone and hopefully they didn't leave without me..." I wasn't completely sure that they would wait for me after what I said to Zora.

"Fine, let us meet Zora the Zorua, so I can-"

"Um, Zora's a Zoroark now, not a Zorua." The Espeon simply nodded and continued his little rant about how he was going to retrive the Gem from Mew and Zora. I picked up the Espeon and carried him to the PokeCenter Room in which we temporarily resided.

Now what was the room number?

...|_Deviation_|...

I awoke with a start after falling off the bed. Maybe I fell asleep, or maybe I just dozed off, but now I knew I had a headache - luckily I wasn't on the top bunk, or else that would have hurt way more.

Moving on from the fall, I decided to check on Zora before I went to back to sleep - only to find that Zora had vanished into thin air. Not surprised really, she was rather upset after all.

I was still unsure about how I was going handle both Sparrow and Zora constantly fighting each other and the eventually death of one of them - most likely Sparrow.

"HEY! HEY! HEY Lulu! Where's Master!? I'm hungry and I want to play fetch!" Cried a confused Flappy as it awoke from it's day long slumber, impatiently awaiting her Human to crush her mighty hunger, quench the endless thirst that plagued her sleep and throw the ancient stick of fetch for her to return. Unfortunately, Sparrow was either sulking out on the streets or was dead in the gutters after Zora managed to track him down - either way, Flappy's requests were not going to be for filled anytime soon.

"First of all; My name's Lucas, not Lulu, and Secondly; It's... 3:13 in the morning, I'm not going find a stick and throw it around for your personal enjoyment!" Normally, Sparrow would put Flappy in her Pokeball before going to sleep or before she woke up, but he had left in a hurry after bitch slapping Zora with his little speech.

"AWWWwwwWw! But I want FOOOOOD! D:" Flappy cried, absolutely heartbroken at the fact that she would not get to be feed for the day after sleeping through it.

"*Sigh* Just hang on for a bit until Sparrow and Zora get back. When they do, you can play with Sparrow AND Zora! How about that!" I said sarcastically, knowing how Zora would react to the hyper Starly.

"Awwww..." Flappy said, utterly defeated and sad.

"Wha-What time is it" Electra yawned loudly. She must have been awoken when we started talking - or when Flappy started crying about food and fetch.

"IT's FOOD TIME! YAAAAAAAAAAY!" Flappy screamed _very_ loudly and ecstatically, just as if I had said I would give her food, which I hadn't.

"NO! It's NOT food time! It's 3-something in the FLIPPING MORNING!" I yelled back, _really_ not wanting to deal with Flappy at this time in the morning. Or at all.

"Oh, thanks, I don't know why I woke up at this time of day, but I'm really tired now. I'm going to try go back to sleep now, so please don't wake me." Electra then fell back onto the bed and attempted catch some sleep.

**Knock! Knock! Knock!**

"I think someone's knocking at the door, I wonder who it is..."

...|_Deviation_|...

"Oooohh! I cant WAIT to meet Lucas!" Taki said excitedly, barely able to contain her excitement.

"Just don't kill or whatever." Zora replied, impatiently waiting for the door to open.

The door did open though and a tired Lucario - aka Lucas - emerged from the PokeCenter room along with a hyperactive Flappy.

"Oh? So you came back, did you?" He asked "Well, please- wait who is _that_!?" Lucas exclaimed, noticing the floating Haunter hovering next Zora. The Haunter was in fact Taki - who was absolutely beaming at Lucas.

"My name's Taki and I want to join your team!" Taki cried excitedly. Lucas gave her an odd look before saying:

"Ah... sure you can-"

"YAY! THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU THANK YOU! YAAAAY! I'M SO EXCITED TO BE ON YOUR TEAM! YAY! THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE!" She had embraced Lucas in a tight hug and was excitedly yelling at his face.

"OK OK! Just don't make me deaf, please!" Taki released Lucas from her death grip and apologized.

"Whatever, let's go inside and wait for Captin Retard return from his voyage." Zora said blandly.

And so they went inside to chillax and possibly get some sleep. But Captain Retard - aka Sparrow - was approaching their room with an Espeon in his arms.

**KnockKnockKnock!**

Sparrow rapt on a PokeCenter for the 15th time and prayed to Arceus that this would be the correct dorm.

"Yes? Who is it- Oh! Sparrow? You came back too? Wow, and when did you get that Espeon?" Lucas asked as he opened the door to reveal Sparrow staring back at him.

"I, uh... just caught it then! I... um... I, decided to use your technique of catching Pokemon for once and it worked!" He said nervously.

"Well then... come in. We're all trying to catch up on some sleep... so you can come join us if you want..." And with that, the two of them head back into the room where an angry looking Zora stood in the middle of the room, looking straight at Sparrow with a hateful glare.

"Sooo... long time no see, eh?"

...|_Deviation_|...

**A/N Just a quick final note; I have change the layout of the doc. a bit, as you will have noticed, and so this will be the last Authors Note until something drastic happens - such as a delay or similar. I will also be modifying the summary for the story as well.**

_**Hail Hydra! One last time!**_


	11. 11: I just killed a man

**Chapter 11**

I just killed a man

_With a fierce glare, their final moments were shared..._

...|**Deviation**|...

The silence was crushing, as was the stares that flew from the eyes of Zora and Sparrow and the Espeon in his arms. I stood upon this awkward scene as a bystander wondering what the heck was happening.

Floating next to the glaring Zora was a Haunter, who seemed to like me to some degree, since she was positively beaming at me with absolute affection.

The Espeon in Sparrow's arm stared at Zora with hatred in his eyes. Maybe they knew each other before this? What ever it was, it was probably Zora who started it. Sparrow shared the same menacing glare that the Espeon had.

Flappy, Electra, Skitz and I just stared the two as they glared fiercely at each other, waiting to see who would strike first. That person was Zora.

"Who the fuck is that!?" She asked angrily.

"For your information, bitch," He said, feeling irritated by Zora's rude remark.

"This is..." Sparrow paused as realized that the Espeon had no name.

_My name is Espia. _Said the Espeons telepathic voice in Sparrows head.

"Uhh, his name is Espia!" Sparrow replied hastily. "And uh, I caught him at the Route near the PokeCenter. And just who the heck is that?" He said, referring to the ghost floating next to Zora, still gleefully staring at me with her large eyes, filled with awe for whatever reason.

"Espia? Hah! What a stupid name!" Zora said with a chuckle. "Heh Sorta like your dumb ass name, right? Hahaha!" She continued to laugh as Sparrow glared angrily at her remark.

"Fuck you asshole!" Sparrow shouted back, placing the Espia on the floor and clenching his fist. Sparrow did not like it when people made fu of his name. It brought back bad memories of his short school life.

"Guys!" I called out, not wanting another fight to breakout. "Stop fighting already! Can't you just get along for once?! Jeez."

Both Zora and Sparrow back down somewhat and allowed me to continue speaking, giving the occasional glare at each other.

"Now, who's that haunter you got?" I said curiously, intrigued by the staring ghost. But before Zora come introduce the ghost, she flew right up into my face and started to introduce herself excitedly.

"HIHIHI! My name's Taka! And I've been dead for 16 years! ZOMG, I can't believe I'm ACTUALLY meeting you!" She said rapidly, barely taking any breathes.

"Uh, right, um, sure..." I said awkwardly. I don't know how she knew me, but it was cool that at least some one admired me. "Hey how did you die? If you don't mind me asking."

Taki's smile faded for a second before return at full force.

"I was flying a kite one day, and then it got caught in a REALLY tall tree!" She said somewhat sadly. "So I climbed the tree to get the kite... then I got struck by lightning!"

"So you got struck by lightning? Not that interesting..." Zora remarked.

"Yeah, but that's not what killed me! After got hit by lightning, I fell off the tree and landed on my head and... well, you can sorta see what happened."

"Wow, so when you die, you become a Pokemon?" Sparrow asked.

"Well, not ALL the time, sometimes you just, die, you know? But sometimes you become a ghost Pokemon! Like me!" Taki said excitedly.

"OK, well, why are you staring at me so much? It's getting sorta creepy..." I'll admit it, her constant staring was getting on my nerves as well.

"Because I've heard so much about you!" Taki replied excitedly.

"What?! How come you've heard about me? I've never told anybody about what I was going to do..." I was pretty confused to be honest.

"I bet she's a stalker." Zora imputed.

"I'm not a stalker!" Taki said strongly. "I heard about you while I was staying at the graveyard! People were saying that you were going to beat the Ultimate League!"

"What's the Ultimate League?" Sparrow asked. "Is it like the E4?"

"Yeah! They say it's the greatest league of them all! *gasp* ZOMG! I wanted to beat the Ultimate League, but I'm only a ghost, so I can't really battle that well..." Then I had an Idea.

"Well, if you really want to beat the E4 or the Ultimate League or whatever it's called, then you could join my team-" Before I could even finished my sentence, Taki zoomed towards me, tackling me in a huge bear hug - or as much as bear hug could be from a ghost.

"THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!" Taki cried ecstatically, absolutely overjoyed by the offer I had presented.

"Whoa, calm down Taki, I just asked if you want to join me!" I said to the excited Haunter.

"But defeating the Ultimate League has been my dream since forever! Even when I was alive!" There was just no calming the excited little Taki as her dreams began to be realized.

"Ohh, clingy isn't she?" Zora said, growing bored of the loud ghost and me hugging. "Can I go to bed now?"

I finally tore Taki off me and replied to Zora with an exasperated sigh and a tired 'yes'.

It was 5 am in the morning and we had to challenge the Eterna City Gym leader. We all into our beds - Taki slept under my bed (Which was slightly creepy), Zora slept on the floor, Sparrow slept on the top of the bunk bed above me with his Pokemon in their respective PokeBalls.

The sleep I got was quite refreshing. Maybe it was the fact that I had to deal with Zora and Sparrow that night, but it was relaxing none the less.

But that was all about to change when I would eventually awake.

...|**Deviation**|...

The night sky holds so much beauty that only Dark types can truly appreciate. The stars swirled majestically in the deep night sky, creating an amazing scene. I was walking along the wooden bridge connecting Eterna city and the nearby route. It was quite relaxing standing on the bridge, thinking about the days events. My name's Zora by the way, and today's been one of the most fucked up day's of my life - apart from the day I lost Strike, which will always be the worst day of my life.

But now I was stronger, I could take what that fuckwit Sparrow threw at me. But nothing was more therapeutic than I nice long midnight stroll. So that's were I was, alone on the rather narrow wooden bridge - or so I thought.

"H-hey, Zora!" A voice shouted from the other side of bridge. That voice belonged to none other than Sparrow. Just what I needed.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" I called back, pondering the reason why he would be out here at such a late hour, aka midnight.

"We're here to eliminate you, Zora the Zoroark!" Another voice shouted back. This voice happened to belong to the angry looking Espeon Sparrow had 'caught', named Espia.

"Oh really?" I said jokingly. "How are you gonna do that, huh, little boy and Mr. Pinky?" Like I've said before; I like making silly nicknames for people I don't like.

"_This_ is how were going to do it!" Espia nodded to the shaking Sparrow the stood beside him, who then pulled out a shiny black pistol; aiming it at me.

I took a step back in surprise, not expecting them to go this far as to try shoot me with a pistol.

"Are you seriously going to _shoot_ me you cowards?" I said incredulously. I knew they were sole losers, but I never thought that they would shoot me, instead of facing me in a battle. Such bitches.

Sparrow - who's arm was shaking like a leaf in a hurricane - closed his eyes and looked away before pulling the trigger with a shaky finger.

**BANG!**

The thunderous boom of the gun rang through the air as the bullet flew through the air. Fortunately for me, the bullet missed all of my vital organs and instead struck my middle claw on my left hand. The pain was immense, but it wasn't anything I hadn't felt before.

"FUCK!" I yelled out in rage, clutching me bleeding hand which was now missing a claw. A claw I would put up at the two, had it not been blown off. "Aarrg! You FUCKING Assholes!"

"Idiot!" Espia shouted at the terrified Sparrow. "Aim for the heart! Don't close your eyes next time! Now SHOOT!"

Sparrow took aim once again, struggling to keep his eyes on the target.

**BANG!**

He fired another shot at me, this time with more accuracy. I felt the horrible sensation of the lead bullet piercing my abdomen.

"AAAARRRRG!" I doubled over in pain, clutching my bleeding stomach whilst howling in pain. But that wasn't enough.

Espia charged full speed at my injured figure, forcing me back over the rope handle bars of the bridge. Thankfully, I managed to grab onto the edge of the bridge and held on for dear life, as the water below rushed underneath me - I would certainly not survive the fall if I let go.

Espia walked proudly and pridefully over to were I was hanging off the bridge, where he began to taunt me.

"Ohh, well would you look at this, eh?" He said in a cocky voice, the sort of voice that made me want to rake his eyes out. "Looks like the big bad fox has met her end!"

"Please, don't kill me! I'll, i'll promise not to make fun of you any more! I promise!" I was beginning to panic now, making me form deals that I didn't want to honor. But I wanted to live.

"T-that sounds r-reasonable!" Sparrow said quickly.

"No!" Espia shouted back, apparently not satisfied with the deal I proposed. "I want to make you pay for what you did to Purpura!" My eyes widened as I realized why he had done this. But I had no time to think about this as pain in the bullet wound in my stomach increased to an almost unbearable level. I was also starting to get light headed from the blood loss - half of the front of my body was covered in blood - and my grip was loosening.

"Please... don't" I weakly replied.

Espia then put his paw on my left hand - the one with the missing claw - and prepared to push me off the bridge.

"Drown in hell, bitch."

I felt him push my injured hand off of the wooden bridge and my grip slipped.

The water rushed towards me as fell towards it. I felt ice cold rushing water slam into me; dragging me below the ice cold surface.

...|**Deviation**|...

"O-oh my God! I-i actually k-killed her!" Sparrow and Espia were walking back to the PokeCenter to avoid being caught at the crime scene. While Espia was acting like he had just finished a minor deed, Sparrow was freaking out. "Why did I do that!? I-i don't understand..."

"You were angry at Zora because I made you angry and hateful." Espia replied. "By the way, thanks for eliminating Zora for me, she's been a thorn in my side for years. Damn bitch."

Sparrow couldn't believe what Espia had told him; he had been used by the Espeon to complete his evil deeds, and he felt absolutely horrible about.

"I-i can't... why?" Sparrow managed to stutter.

"Because I can't hold a gun or a knife efficiently and since you were already angry at my enemy, I decided that you would be acceptable for the job. Now, I must leave, for my job here is done." Before Sparrow could even reply to him, Espia sped of into a nearby bush, leaving the quivering Sparrow alone on the dark cobble path. he would have to return to the PokeCenter room and confront Lucas - who would not be happy about him killing Zora.

Overwhelmed by the endless stream of thoughts about what had just happened, Sparrow collapsed on to the ground in a sitting position, burring his head in his arms and began to cry.

Eventually, the tired and broken Sparrow fell into a uncomfortable slumber after crying out all he had. He would awake to find himself lying on the cold, wet, hard cobble stone; drenched in the late night rain. He would eventually have to explain to Lucas what had happened that night. It would not be pleasant, to say the least.

He was all alone.

...|**Deviation**|...

**Thanks to school, updating will be **_**very**_** slow, about once a fortnight. Thank you for being patient with the absence of updates. A lot of small but important details in the previous chapters have been changed or removed, so if you have already read the first chapters before this update (Feb. 2nd, 2015), I would recommend skimming of the first five chapters or so to get yourself up to speed with the changes.**

_**Hail Hydra!**_


End file.
